The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-01-14
Industrial Plant Construction Begun
 Ln District in 1918 Wears Completion
 And Warrior Transportation Progresses
Birmingham Steel Corpora tiOn Moves Into Office Building at Plant-MObile Aroused Over Warrior Situation

Local officials of the Bir- imingham Steel corporation have moved into the new office building at the plant in the vi cinity of Fifth avenue and Thirty-fifth street, where they have more room and are closer to their work.
 Practically all of the machinery and equipment for this plant has been delivered and is being installed as rap idly as possible. Operations are ex- pected to be begun there by the end of the present month. Between 1900 and 2O00 men will be employed. Several important industrial plants, the construction of which began during the year 1918, are approa ching completion, and will in all probability be in operation by the middle of the summer. In addi- ton to the Birmingham Steel corpora ton, the Steel Cities Chemical company s plant being built at Ensley to replace the one destroyed by fire last summer. will be ready for operations about Feb ruary l, and the Shelby Chemical com pany, at Shelby, which will produce wood chemicals, also will probably start up sometime in February.
 Completion of these plants has been retarded to some extent by lack of labor. | tardy deliveries of materials and ma chinery and the severe weather condi- tions prevailing the latter part of De- cember and the early part of January. BY-PRODUCT COKE PLANT l Satisfactory progress is being madt ! with the construction work at the by products coke plants of the Tennessee Coal. Iron and Railroad company, at Ensley. the Sheffield Steel and Iron company at North Birmingham and the l Birmingham Coke and By-Products company at Tarrant City. All of these will be completed by midsummer, it is stated, and put in operation immediately l thereafter
 1 Coal production, now that the holidays are over and better weather conditions prevail, is expected to return to normal. During the last three weeks there has been considerable reduction in the out put due, it is said, to the holidays and the bad weather. This has resulted in an acute shortage of domestic coal in this district. Retail dealers state that they are unable to get coal from the mine operators and without shipments coming 1 they cannot supply the needs of their customers.
 l The supply of steam coal is ample to meet all demands upon the district it is said, but the domestic coal situation is entirely different.
 With the opening of navigation on the Warrior considerable tonnage of bunk craze coal Is going to Mobile and New Orleans, and as the greater part of this jhas heretofore been available for use in the Birmingham district further local shortage in supply is anticipated.
 MOBILE IS AROUSED
 Mobile business men are becoming lmuch exercised over the Warrior situa- tion. New Orleans is building bunkerage facilities for handling 800 tons of coa an hour. which when completed, about three months hence, will give that port a great advantage over any other port lin the country. With the completion of these it will be possible to coal the largest ships within few hours, whereas under present conditions days are re. lquired.
 Mobile people realize that in order tC
 compete with New Orleans for this trade
 in the future they must have equal ia
 cilities, that the mere fact that they
 are nearer the mines and get their coa
 for 40 cents a ton less freight charges fho n1
 vantages New Orleans will have wher
 the new bunkerage facilities are in use
 Accordingly, Mobile business men, head ed by the joint Warrior river commit tee, are agitatng the issuance of bond!
 with which to build the necessary DOT and bunkerage equipment. Under an ac of the legislature passed several year ago the city commissioners are author ized to issue such bonds upon the peti
 ton of 25 per cent of the voters of tn
 city, and in the event the commission
 CTS refuse to pass the necessary ordinanc after receiving the required petition tn
 law imposes upon them the duty of sub
 hitting the question to vote of tn
 people.
 A movement is under way. the Registe
 states, to bring about the issuance o
 bonds sufficient to pay for all needed
 port facilities.
 UNIFORM OCEAN RATE s
 In this connection it is stated that tn United States railroad administration ha under submission a uniform ocean freigh
 rate and wharfage charges that woul f take away from Mobile the advantag
 now possessed in the way of low charges
 The charges at Mobile are said to b less than at any other port on eithe the Atlantic and gulf coast, due to ex
 ceptionally favorable conditions there. l t the railroad administration succeeds i
 it's plan this advantage would be take . away and much of the ocean shippin i now going there would be diverted t | other ports.