IRON AND STEEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 99, 28 April 1937, Page 14

IRON AND STEEL

AUSTRALIAN OUTPUT

Australian Iron and Steel, Ltd. (the preference shares of which are quoted in New Zealand), has embarked on extensive additions to its plant to lower costs and increase production. The chairman (Mr. R. C. Mcares) told shareholders, at the annual meeting held in Melbourne that a battery of 72 by-product coke ovens was being installed and should go into production in the current year. The Built and Mount Keira collieries, both within a few miles of the steel works, had been purchased to ensure adequate supplies of coal. An additional steel furnace, making four in all, had been installed, and began operations on January 25; and the installation of a blast furnace with a capacity of 1000 lons of pig iron per day had begun. Mr. Meares said that Lysaghts Newcastle Worh, Ltd., had taken over the sheet mills owned by the company and were now operating them. The mills would shortly be moved to a new siteat Port Kembla. The board had decided to install a new 18-inch continuous billet and sheet bar mill to. meet the demand for sheet bar for the mills and the increased use of merchant bar. The land owned by the company had proved too small to. allow of necessary expansion, and the freehold of a large area had been acquired from the State Government to provide for future needs. These works, Mr. Meares concluded, would take some months to complete, but they should, when completed, put the company in a position to earn reasonable returns on the capital invested.