NEW STEEL WORKS

Taranaki Daily News, 6 August 1934, Page 9

NEW STEEL WORKS

ACTIVITY IN THE DOMINIONS. IMPORTS TO NEW ZEALAND. The prospect of the Australian market being closed entirely and the South African market partly closed to British iron and steel exports of the heavier type within a few years, was envisaged by Mr. W. R. Lysaght in his presidential address to the annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute in London on May 31. Mr. Lysaght explained that he had recently returned from a tour of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Steel works at Broken "Hill, Australia, were extraordinarily efficient, and among the finest he had ever seen. Ore was delivered at the furnace'at, 8s a ton, and pig iron made at under £2 a top, with an output of about 8000 tons a week. Plates, rails, wire rods, sheet bars, girders, beams, and all sorts of constructional merchant iron were made there.

A new works, owned by the Australian Iron and Steel Company, was springing up. It had made pipes and pig iron, had begun to make rails and sections, and was putting down sheet mills. He was afraid, therefore, .■ that in two or three •years not an ounce of heavy steel would be sent to. Australia, and Great Britain would probably lose that market. In addition,- Australian makers, aided by the present advantage of rate of exchange, were sending certain iron and steel products to New. Zealand. In a reference to the new works at Pretoria, Mr. Lysaght said that' k£4,000,000 had already been spent upon them, and he understood that another £1,000,000 was to be spent. It would take some time longer to cover the market in the centre of South Africa or near the ports, but he was afraid that British iron and steel exporters would have to wipe Australia entirely, and South Africa partially, from their books within a few years.