OneSteel changes name to Arrium

OneSteel is changing its name to Arrium in the hope the new tag better reflects its various mining businesses. However, the company is also retaining the OneSteel brand for the group's traditional steel operations.

OneSteel Chief Executive Geoff Plummer said the name Arrium provides a better association with the company's current mining and materials businesses, and better accommodated its strategic growth focus on mining and mining consumables.

"We have found that many investors, particularly overseas investors, have had perceptions that we were solely a steel company due to our name suggesting this, and missed that we are now a significant miner and exporter of iron ore and the global leader in grinding media, servicing the fast-growing copper, gold and iron ore markets in key growth markets across the world," he said.

The Arrium name will apply to the company as a whole, and to two of its three businesses. The mining business will be known as Arrium Mining, including the Middleback Ranges, Southern Iron and Whyalla port operations. Arrium Mining Consumables will include the MolyCop grinding media business and OneSteel will include steel manufacturing, distribution and metal recycling.

Plummer said the name Arrium was a constructed one which had no particular meaning, but it was supposed to suggest "a mining and materials business of some substance".

He said having a constructed name was essential so that the company could acquire the intellectual property rights to it and internet and other protections around the world.

OneSteel's name change comes just weeks after the company announced its manufacturing plant at Kembla Grange, in the heavy industry city of Wollongong in NSW, would cease operations on 31 May.

Source: AAP NewsWire