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The owner of the Whyalla Steelworks, GFG Alliance, says it is cutting costs, including on maintenance work at the plant, as it contends with a global slump in steel prices.
"To manage through the market downturn, we are reducing fixed costs including maintenance to calibrate with lower market demand.
"We are reducing all non-essential spending and prioritising areas that are safety critical and essential for production," a spokesperson for the company said.
It comes as several sources raised the alarm to ABC News about safety concerns at the steelworks.
On the condition of anonymity, a former steelworks employee told ABC News he feared someone would "get hurt" because not enough preventative maintenance work was being done.
"Unfortunately, Mr Gupta, he's got a lot of words, but I haven't seen one bit of action, he has not spent 1 cent in doing anything to improve that plant," he said.
A spokesperson for the company owned by Sanjeev Gupta (pictured) says safety is of the utmost concern.
GFG Alliance executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta bought the steelworks in 2017 after it had gone into administration.
The former employee retired from the steelworks in July after more than 40 years because of his "frustrations with how they [GFG] were treating people, my crew" and said conditions for workers were deteriorating.
"It should never have got to this stage where you have to bring in your own toilet paper, you haven't got cleaners to clean the toilets or crib rooms.
"That's no way to run a multi-million-dollar company, by not paying cleaners.
"That's pretty pathetic."
A local contractor said his company had gone from averaging $360,000 of work a month with the steelworks to "virtually nothing" since May.
"They've gone away from all contractors," he said on the condition of anonymity, "so to run the plant successfully they need more people, which they haven't taken on because they can't afford it, I'm guessing.
"So, the proper maintenance that needs to be done couldn't be performed with the people they've got."
In a statement, GFG Alliance said safety remained its number one priority.
"While we can never take safety for granted, we have an exceptional safety record across our Australian operations including in Whyalla, where we have significantly improved safety since acquiring the business."
Acting state secretary of the Australian Workers' Union Gary Henderson said the union was "very concerned about the cost-cutting measures to the infrastructure of the plant".
"Unfortunately, when there is a shutdown of the blast furnace, which went for several months, and there is significant financial pressure, they're just trying to cut as many costs as possible," he said.
The plant's coal-fired blast furnace was knocked offline for more than three months earlier this year after it cooled too much following a planned stoppage for maintenance.
A delivery of coking coal for the blast furnace arrived last week. (ABC News/Carl Saville)
The furnace was also forced into a series of shutdowns from mid-August after running out of coking coal.
A crucial shipment arrived at Whyalla late last week to replenish supplies.
Mr Henderson said the union is worried about the safety and wellbeing of workers.
"When workers go to work and they see things that should be fixed that aren't fixed, basically putting a bandaid over it and then moving on to the next job, it's work that they shouldn't be doing," said Mr Henderson.
"It's creating an unsafe workplace, and to be quite honest GFG Alliance need to do better in that space.
"I've heard of concerns around safety about personal protective equipment, that workers are finding it hard to get safety glasses, workers are finding it hard just to get gloves," he said.
Local MP Eddie Hughes said workers had raised with him their concerns about safety and "the state of the plant".
"It's no secret, anybody that works there knows that the level of maintenance has not been commensurate with the nature of the plant and the age of the plant," he said.
"There has been very limited preventative maintenance over an extended period of time, indeed some of this goes back as far as Arrium days and even further.
"With an aging plant, that is a real concern," Mr Hughes said.
The contractor said he was speaking out now because "there's nothing else they can hang over our heads because the work has stopped".
Some have expressed concern that maintenance has not adequately kept up with the aging plant. (ABC News: Justin Hewitson)
He is concerned GFG Alliance no longer intends to make steel in Whyalla and will soon restructure its operating model.
"Whatever their long-term intent is, it's certainly not to be producing steel here because there's no way they can keep up with the plant with the people they've got," he said.
"The word is they're going to ship in billet [a semi-finished steel product] from overseas and do product through their roll mill, so they're only going to keep the roll mill open to produce the billets into product."
GFG Alliance said it "has invested over $1 billion in Whyalla's operations since 2017 and remains committed to its green iron and steel investment plans".
The contractor also called on the South Australian government to do more.
"The state government must have an understanding about what's happening, so why was there no effort made for more accountability from Gupta, he obviously doesn't care about this town," he said.
In August, GFG Alliance blamed the global downturn in the steel market as it axed 48 jobs at the steelworks.
A second local contractor has confirmed to ABC News it has shed a "significant" amount of its workforce, more than a dozen staff, due to a lack of ongoing work at the steelworks.