New Britain herald., 1918-03-22
Steel and Pig
 Iron M kets
The Iron Age says:

! The Iron Age says
 Iron and steel manufa cturers en- : tered the price conference with the l War Industries Board at Washiur. { Iton Wednesday knowing that the, would be asked to make reductions
 ion some products, particularly ptg . iron. Producers of foundry iron ] strongly oppose lower prices, and q compromise may be made by reduc-
 ing basic iron $1 or to S32, and Bes- semer iron, which is ten per cent, i higher. from s36.30 to s35.20. There is a probability, too, of some down. 1 ward revision in scrap, in certain / forms of which competition has all ] ready brought reductions from the ! Government basis
 On some finished products which ! have been considered out of Hae the 1 Government will also seek reductions. How strongly these will be pressed
 depends upon the extent to wl.ich Washington considers the output of
 smaller high-cost plants to be essen 1 t1al to the carrying out of it's pro l gram. On the score of securing the l largest possible output of pig iron
 and steel from the available coke ] current priority decisions tend more
 and more to throw smaller iron and
 steel plants into idleness. and the de- vclopment of this policy is be1Ig? watched closely throughout the ir- l dustry.
 No material or general readjust-
 ment of existing prices for rolled 1 products is looked for and the steel men contend that the uncertainties of the situation, which are already c1f Cnr, c17 l,n <I l by making the new prices effective 1 for at least six months.
 Apart from the special plea, of two large consuming interests for ;l re- duction in Southern pig iron because they located plants in the south to get the benefit of it's low pig-iron
 costs, manufacturing buyers of iron and steel figure in no formal way in the present Washington conference. Somewhat conflicting statements are made as to the extent to which Government and general business needs will take up steel-making ca pacity in the remainder of the Wear. That the shipyard, railroad and she'll steel programs will make progressive
 ly larger demands on the mills in the second half is known, but the second quarter may show some bare places in operating schedules. The slowing down of certain lines is apparent now
 due to the slackness of building, les sened automobile buying, the long suppression of railroad demand and the shrinkage in various noc-e -ess2n- tial industries. The output of certain kinds Of foundries is less.
 At the same time there is some pressure upon the mills for deliver
 
 example, but here the trouble has
 been largely in the East, resulting directly from the fuel f1asco Of last month. To meet the immediate ur~. gent demand for ship plates, more use is to be made of the product of universal mills. in spite of the extra riveted seams involved and the Gifii- culty of caulking the rolled edges of such plates.
 Tn heavy products Government re- qurements in the second half of the year may at times make demands that will tax capacity. The ,'all for rails and large rounds as now figured will be considerably more than a six months output of the couutry's rali mills, but structural mills. with building so much curtailed, can take a part of the 2,o00,000 tons of shell steel scheduled for the second half.
 In fabricated steel work the rec ords of the Bridge Builders ard Structural Society show that in Feb ruary bookings totaled 100000 tons against a tn cOretiCal capacity of 13G.- 900 tons for all the shops of the country. Another large Governrn ent distribution is expected shortly for piers and warehouses at all import 1 ant Atlantic ports. In portable han l gars for France the weeks awards ! have been put at 1,400, and if the 1 total should prove to be 4,O00 that ] would mean 100 900 tons of sha pcs. l
 Consumers are watching closely for evidences of competition bringing ! prices below the maximum figure ] agreed upon. II was know that on 1 Government contracts for larger 1 sized bolts and nuts, where many of | one size were called for, cutting was 1 general, and there has been some 1 irregularity in bolt and nut prices ] on non- Government business Cast | iron pipe prices also dropped under 1 the official figures, and the devittions ] in the scrap trade were common.
 Chicago district works have taken | heavy Government orders in the ! past week, the Emergency Fleet Cor 1 poration having placed 75,000 tons ! with one company, deliveries going l bout equally to fabricatorS a2d ship |