BESSEMER STEEL

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 6, 9 January 1933, Page 9

BESSEMER STEEL

BIG BRITISH PROJECT

FINANCE ARRANGED

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, Ist December. A great, new English steel works costing £3,300,000 is to bo erected at Oorbj", Northamptonshire. Tho work, which will" take tivo years to complete, and will provide employment, direct and indirect, for thousands of men, is to start immediately. In a. circular to shareholders Messrs. Stewarts and Lloyds refer to tho fact I that the company hitherto lias been dependent for its requirements of basic j Bessemer steel on imported foreign materials. Tho importance of producing basic Bessemer steel on the scale now contemplated is greatly emphasised when consideration is given to the iargo quantities of that material ,imported each year.into this country. The major portion of the cheaper classes of steel coming from abroad consists of steel manufactured by the Bessemer process. Messrs. Stewarts and Lloyds possess or control large deposits of iron ore in Northamptonshire. These cover 26,000 acres, and amount to 500,000,000 tons of ore. , Some! of tho cheapest pig iron iii the country has, 'it is stated, been produced from this ore. By experiments it has been found possible to produce from this ore a pig iron eminently suitable for the manufacture of basic Bessemer steel at a very low cost. . . ■ . It is intended to transfer some of the firm's• tube-making activities to Corby in order that they may'form an integral part of the new works. The company controls twenty-two iron and steel and tube-manufacturing works in Scotland and England, and produces SO per cent, of the steel tubes made in this country. . . ' Steel of basic Bessemer quality was formerly piajiufactured iv this'country, but for one reason and another the industry ceasetl. To-day we are dependent on f6reign imports. POLICY OF RATIONALISATION. The erection ■of the .combined, plant will, it is maintained, mark a furthci step in tho policy of rationalisation and concentration which the company has been pursuing for years. When the plant is finished all the tubes, now manufactured at several works from imported basic Bessemer steel will be produced on .ond- site-at Corby, beginning from ihe company's own iron ore, and proceeding through air stages to the finished product without any transport outside the "-works. Large-scale economics are expected to bo' achieved. The tariffs now in operation, which affect basic Bossemer steel, are indicated as another reason in favour of the, erection of the ne\y steel works and tube-making, plant. W.oi-k is to bo started at once. Even in tho preliminary stages employment, it is expected, will bo given to thousands of men. Tho works are to take two yoars to build, and the plant is to be entirely of British maimfae-tui-eV . When completed it is. believed that work will bo found for ore miners, coal miners, blast furnacenienj coke ,oveu men, steel works men, and many other classes of ancillary workers, together with those who will s be employed in supplying goods and' service, such as railway employees, etc. : Messrs. Stewarts and Lloyds' at present have an issued capital. of over £6,000,000. The new expenditure is expected' to amount to about £3,300,000. The whole of this large amount is to be provided by a financial group, of bankers and other interests through the Bankers'! Industrial Development Company, a concern formed some few yeaVs ago under the auspices of the Bank of England for the purpose of advancing rationalisation, in the basic, industries of the country/