New Britain herald., 1915-10-15
STEEL BUSINESS FOR
 1916 NOT LARGE
Companies Holding Off Because
 They Look for Higher Prices

New York. Oct. 14.-The Iron Age says:
 The volume of current business for 1916 delivery is not as great as might
 be expected with steel as scarce as it is and with the expectation general that this tightness will continue for l months. Few mills are making any , effort to sell for any part of next year, but the Steel Corporations gain of 100000 tons in thrilled orders Is taken to mean that it has done more selling for the first half than it's com petitors.
 Sold Up For Months. Some of the steel companies are holding off because they are we'll sold up for several months and look for higher prices; others are making sales at 1.4Oc., Pittsburg, for heavy products and prefer that the advance should not be rapid. One large Central Western producer is asking 1.5Oc for bars and plates for the first quarter.
 Apparently buyers for European governments have failed to appreciate the rate at which the mills have been filling up. France has held back large requirements for the first half of next year which must soon be placed. Italy has been asking for barb wire, plates, billets and bars running up to 100000 tons and has encountered rising prices on all sides.
 Railroads Buying Rails.
 The railroads moved none too quickly in placing rails for next year. At Chicago, where railroad buying 11c have much more than a backlog for the first half. Additions to the first B. & O. contracts have brought the total to 62,500 tons, chiefly 1O0-lb. rails.
 At Pittsburg 10000 to 5o,ooo tons of car material has just been ordered, apart from 9,000-ton requirement for Norfolk & Western steel gondolas. The large amount of vessel work coming forward in the East has done much to stiffen the plate market.
 With some structural mills nearly filled for several months. it is not surprising that 1.40c., Pittsburg Is nominal or that 1.5Oc. is asked on new business. Fabricating shops took contracts in September equal to 67 per cent. of capacity, compared with S5 per cent. in August. bringing the average for this year close up to that for 1912 which passed for a l good year.
 Protection By Option.
 Fabricators already find trouble in | getting protection by options from | the mills for work in prospect, since higher levels are looked for. Yet the low bid on 6O,00O tons for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit System aver aged only $44.60 ton for fabricated material delivered in Brooklyn, or $11.5O a ton below the nearest bid. 1 Figured on $28 steel, these bids mean $16.60 and $28.10 respectively for fab rication, haulage and profit.
 Tin plate contracts for next year l are still in abeyance. Salmon can- l ners have bought at $3.25, Pittsburg, | for first quarter, but for the full year l $40 and ss.50 are considered more | likely While nominally $3.25, this years contract ranged all the way l down to s3.
 Main Props Of Trade.
 Blue annealed and autom obile l sheets are the main props of the sheet trade. The galvanized product shows less than a 25 per cent. movement, the gyrations of spelter destroying all reckoning.
 With all the congestion in open l hearth steel bars, for which as high l as 1.5Oc. has been paid, bar-iron mills | in the Chicago district can scarcely 1 keep running and users are not avail l ing themselves of the cheaper Bes- 1 semer bars. In the Eastern market l bar iron for early delivery has ad- | vanced $1 a ton.
 All sorts of premiums have been paid for steel bil1ets, the export trade in particular showing wide variations in price. Of interest to the sheet trade is a. price of $26 Youngstown.