Before being made into specific shapes, steel is cast into different sized raw steel products (called slabs, billets and blooms) while still in liquid form. Water sprays along the casting machines start to cool and solidify the steel. It is then hot-rolled flat and thin between two rolls revolving at the same speed but in opposite directions. The rolling creates finer crystals, making the steel denser, stronger and tougher.

Typically, iron ore is mined by breaking up the ground using explosives, then scooping up the ore using large excavators. Iron ore varies from hard lump ore to powdery fine ore. The ore is then crushed and blended to get the right mix for various steelmaking processes.
The ore is taken in trains with up to 250 wagons and three engines to places such as BHP's Whyalla steelworks in South Australia.

In the steelmaking proces, pig iron is mixed with steel scraps (recycled steel) and oxygen and heated to melt the scrap and remove most of the carbon out of the iron. The resulting steel is not as hard as pig iron but is easier to shape. The steel is heated with metals such as manganese and chromium to make the desired steel 'alloy'. Each alloy has certain properties (such as a specific strength or malleability) to suit its future purpose, such as the arches of Stadium Australia. Fluxes are again added to remove impurities which are removed as a 'slag'

Once shaped, the steel can be coated in a process called 'galvanising', to protect it from rusting. For example, Zincalume® is steel with a coating of 45% zinc and 55% aluminium, and Colorbond® is also coated with paint. Zincalume® has been used on the roof of the Velodrome.

Steel is made from iron. Iron is usually found in the earth combined with oxygen - that is, as an 'iron oxide' like the mineral haematite, together with some impurities (small amounts of other elements).
Australia has huge reserves of iron ore, mostly in South Australia and Western Australia. Australia supplies 12.5% of the world's iron ore needs.

The iron ore is dropped into giant 'blast furnaces', where it is smelted (heated) with coke (made from coal in large coke ovens) and a flux such as limestone to get rid of impurities. A blast of hot air (1200 0C) is blown in, causing the coke to burn and producing carbon monoxide. This reacts with the iron oxide to make a gas and metallic iron.

Iron Oxide + Carbon Monoxide -> Iron + Carbon Dioxide gas.

Using other processes steel can then be further rolled into beams or other shapes, or drawn through smaller and smaller holes until wire-thin (to make fences, springs, nails, staples, steel wool, pins etc).

Molten (melted) iron, containing about 4% carbon, collects at the bottom of the furnaces and is tapped (drained out) and transported in ladles, which run on rails, to the steelmaking area. It is called 'pig iron'.

Hot rolling steel strip

No 6 Blast Furnace at Port Kembla

Transporting molten iron to the BOS furnace

Wire stranding operation

Open cut operation at Iron Knob

Charging the Basic Oxygen Steelmaking (BOS) vessel

Iron ore - hematite

Roll forming cold steel