Sanjeev Gupta was once seen as Whyalla’s ‘saviour of steel’. Seven years later, he may walk away

Sanjeev Gupta in his Sydney office in 2019. Government officials are unsure on whether the UK billionaire will challenge government actions over Whyalla steelworks. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

In the middle of last year, as attempts to revive the broken blast furnace at the heart of Whyalla’s steel operations faltered, government officials started working on a contingency plan to find a new operator.

Those talks required a degree of discretion because the state government had lost faith in the owner of the plant, the British industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, and they knew he wouldn’t like the options being discussed.