15,000,000 Tons More

The U.S. steel industry, with RFC funds, can and will expand its present capacity by 15,000,000 tons (17%). So says an OPM report on the President's desk this week. It also says that this expansion--about equal to the total capacity of the British steel industry--will "begin feeding steel into the defense program in about nine months" (it will be two years before it can be completed).

One reason the feeding can begin that soon: since an industry-OPM committee began scanning plants for a possible 10,000,000-ton expansion last spring (TIME, June 16), individual companies have already announced work in progress on over 6,000,000 tons of new ingot capacity. U.S. Steel alone in two months has announced plans for 4,000,000 tons.

Where the rest of the 15,000,000 tons will be located is not yet known. But it will probably hit the map at or near the spots where 6,508,950 tons (11%) of new pig-iron capacity, recommended by OPM last month, is scheduled to arise. In addition to enlargement and rehabilitation of existing blast furnaces, the pig-iron program includes ten new furnaces: one each at Gadsden and Birmingham, Ala., Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio (for Republic Steel), at Johnstown, Pa. and Lackawanna, N.Y. (for Bethlehem), at Braddock, Pa. (for U.S.), at Pueblo, Colo, (for Colorado Fuel & Iron), two at Indiana Harbor (for Inland). At Provo, Utah (or perhaps at Pittsburg, Calif.) U.S. Steel's Columbia works is due to get three more blast furnaces, to be shipped second-hand from eastern mills where they were not in use, would have to be torn down for rebuilding anyway.

Since steel's basic raw material is normally about half pig iron, half scrap, 6,500,000 tons of pig would scarcely be enough to turn out 15,000,000 tons of steel even in normal times. And scrap is now abnormally scarce. Last week OPM steelmen particularly recommended expansion of Bessemer steel capacity, because the otherwise less economical Bessemer process requires very little scrap. Transportation Commissioner Ralph Budd announced a program to collect 232,000 tons of abandoned streetcar rails. But Cleveland's Daily Metal Trades reported that steel mills are still using more scrap than they can replace, that reserves will be gone in eight weeks. Before OPM officials can attend the firing ceremonies of any new steel plant, they will probably see some others close.

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