Obviously, we do produce steel, aluminum and other metals, although do we produce it in large quantities? Or is it a small industry compared to simply exporting raw materials like alumina and iron ore which would be processed overseas?Is it any cheaper for the raw materials to be processed overseas? For example, as I understand it, producing aluminum requires large amounts of electricity in the process of electrolysis to form pure aluminum metal from the alumina ore. With countries such as Japan not having access to cheap coal to produce electricity like we do, is it cheaper to produce aluminum here in Australia?
Not as much as we should in the 1970's Sir Charles Court and Lang Hancock wanted to build a steel mill in Port Headland and the government fought it makes you wonder why.
We still do a far better job of digging it out of the ground selling the raw material than we do of refining then exporting the finished products.. My guess is that the reason for this is that because on a world scale our domestic market for the finished product is so small , countries like China that have a voracious appetite for the finished product know that we are not in a strong bargaining position demand that we sell the raw material . .....their cost of production being much cheaper means the end product is a heck of a lot cheaper as well...plus you can bet that we either pay the freight costs or heavily subsidize them !
Here in Australia mine workers are paid $40+ an hour standard. In Japan and other countries such as, the workers are paid very little. Below the average wage. 14 year old KFC workers are paid higher then those people. That in mind and the cost to export here, of course it is going to be cheaper to source from abroad. Thats why so many of our jobs get send overses. Money, money, money... it's all about the $dollar.
Our bauxite/alumina/aluminium industry is pretty well integrated and unlike iron ore to steel, a great deal of refining is done in Australia. There are seven alumina refineries operating in Australia producing mostly smelter grade alumina for both the domestic and export markets. Australia is the world's largest producer and exporter of alumina and aluminium, producing 19 million tonnes of metallurgical (smelter grade) alumina in 2007 with an export value of $6.2 billion of alumina and $5.6 billion of aluminium. We are also the largest exporter of bauxite with exports of 60 million tonnes of with an export value of only $200 million. Australia's ample energy supplies together with generous power price concessions make it attractiveto refine bauxite here. Steel is another matter altogether and we make only around 7.4 million tonnes annually, mainly for domestic use. In contrast, in 2007 we exported 261.4 million tonnes of iron ore for a value of $15.5 billion. There are some plans afoot to turn this around so that far more steel is produced here to take advantage of our energy resources and the decreased cost of shipping steel rather than unrefined ore. That can only be a good thing for Australia.
