GREAT STEEL WORKS

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 20239, 16 February 1938, Page 4

GREAT STEEL WORKS

-PLAN IN GERMANY MILLION TONS A YEAR Further details of the four-year plan in Central Germany have now come to light. In the neighbourhood of Bleckenstedt (Lower Saxony), it is learned, the first of four great steel works will be ready by the end of next year. The estimated capacity—presumably of all four worksis 1,000,000 tons of raw steel a year. A group of blast furnaces will also be erected, consisting of eight furnaces, coking ovens, steel works and rolling mills, together with ancillary plant. It is hoped to produce in the region of Salzgitter 21,000,000 tons of ore, containing between 25 and 40 per cent, of iron. When the various works near Bleckenstedt are completed it is expected that about 15,000,000 tons of ore will be required annually, while the remaining 6,000,000 tons or ore from Salzgitter will serve to strengthen the ore reserves of the Ruhr region. In the country between the North Harz and the Midland Canal on the one side, and the line Hanover-Hildesheim and Brunswick Wolfenbuettel on the other, there are two large deposits of ore. • There is also believed to be a third orefield north of the Midland Canal containing limestone ore. These three orefields are still being surveyed. This work is rendered more difficult by the peculiar form of the deposits. In some instances shafts to a depth of over 3000 ft must be sunk in order to obtain samples. Nevertheless it is possible to estimate the extent of the ore-fields, which is put at several thousands of millions of tons.