Evening star., 1941-09-10
Semi-Defense Plans
Face Abandonment
For Lack Of Steel
Likelihood of Railroads
Receiving Full Rail Order.
Grows Fainter Daily
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, Sept. 10-Some OF
the big semi-defense projects which
have been talked about recently face
restriction, postponement or COM
plete abandonment because large
amounts of steel cannot be spared
without slowing down vital phases
of the defense program, Iron Age"
said today in its weekly review OF
the steel industry.
The agency said:
Likelihood of the Nations rail-
roads obtaining the balance OF their
1941 rails as well as 1912 require
ments at anywhere near the time
needed grows fainter each day. Rail
mills are overtaxed with orders for
munitions steel and structural
shapes, and mill operators are bound
to fill highest defense orders first.
The plan to build Is new ore YES
sells on the Great Lakes may be
cut down because of the steel in
volved.
THE speeding up of the priority
system and the creation of the new
o. P. M. division of contract dis
tribution are two moves of the past
week being lauded by steel con-
sumers, particularly small metal
working plants.
Scrap Situation Ominous.
"a misleading and ominous quiet
pervaded most iron and steel scrap
markets last week, but with con-
sumption continuing full blast and
no adequate solution toward pro-
curing more open market scrap. the
situation seemed about two weeks
away from another climax.
THE flow of incoming business TO
steel mills in the past week con-
tracted somewhat, with nearly all
producers noting decline IN the
volume of new specifications. In
the light of the great defense back
log, this tapering has little signifi-
canoe.
with lack of scrap and pig
iron continuing to bar still higher
steel output, operations rose a
point this week to 9712 per cent.
This compared with 96l2 per cent
last week and 81 in the pre-holiday
week.
Pig Iron All0cated.
"On last Tuesday pig iron pro-
ducers received their long-awaited
September pig iron schedules which
had been examined and revised by
the o. P. M. in accordance with the
iron priority order. The entire Sep
tember production of pig iron has
been allocated and practically all
the material is slated for shipment
to consumers carrying a defense
rating. In q small number of cases
essential civilian requirements have
been partly taken care of.
"As expected, the entire pool of
2 per cent, the amount which each
producer is to lay aside during Sep
tember, has also been allocated,
most of it going to non-integrated
steel companies short of pig iron
and to foundries with heavy defense
business. Considerable revision is
said to have been done on some
of these pig iron schedules, the
o. P. M. eliminating some ship
ments and adding others.
Already some controversy has
appeared within the industry over
the fact that some pig iron pro-
ducers have been instructed to de-
liver pig iron to points distant from
the point of production, necessi-
tating substantial freight rate ab-
sorption.
Fabricated structural steel awards
of 1880 tons are slightly lower
than a week ago. The largest
lettings are 1880 tons at Marion
Okla, for an air depot for the
War Department. $500 tons for
eight cranes for the Navy Depart
ment at various locations and 1900
tons for an assembly building for
the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. at Bur-
bank, Calf"