AUSTRALIAN STEEL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4812, 19 July 1939, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN STEEL

SHIPMENTS TO BRITAIN. Great Britain has bought nearly £1,500,000 worth of steel from Australia to meet exceptional defence mands. The total output will reach nearly 170,000 tons. The landed price in Britain will be very little above the British price. The chief Australian supplier is the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, Ltd., whose output for the year is estimated at the record level o| 868,099 tons. This company has already announced the export of 50,000 tons of steel . plates and 10,000 tons of galvanised iron sheets to the British Air Ministry for airraid shelters. The B.H.P. shipments go from Newcastle. Another large supplier is Australian Steel and Iron, Ltd., of Port Kembla—a company in which B.H.P. has a controlling interest. Charters have been arranged in London for 22 ships to carry steel from Port Kembla and Newcastle at the rate of about one a week. Port Kembla, not yet fully developed to handle a great number of ships, will feel the strain until new wharves are built. Most of the steel is expected to go from that port. All the chartered freighters have brought or will bring cargoes to Australia, principally lumber from the Pacific Coast of America.

Excluding regular shipments to New Zealand, 62,700 tons of pigiron and steel, valued at more than £470,000, were shipped from Port Kembla during the first six months of 1939. In the last few weeks, 23,000 tons of steel, worth about £230,000, have gone from there to England.