The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-11-22

MMGOM SA8nlktcAuCS v manganese should now he clear.
 Manganese is important to the family bus, the street car tracks and the defense program which you may have seen mentioned c time or two lately, and your Navy would not like it if their battleships had no starch in them--ln all that salt air.
 There Is, therefore, e current manganese problem, though it isn't as serious yet as it was In the last war. The problem IS one common to practically everything else these days, from marbles to money. There isn't enough. The average ts iasA pounds of manganese to O ton os steel, and while &A pounds of Aay- thing isn't much % expect to Q voc man who wants to take it oft ner ! hips, yet when you consider that 1 defense production calls for e9 million tons of steel 6 year by i0a2 or l0AS, you can see that the Tnan- ganese requirements may run more than 100000 tons 0 year, as against the current years requirements ot around iA0,OO0 tons. In other words, a flve-tilnes expansion must Do ar. ranged.
 FOREIGN SUPPLY
 DISAPPEARING
 Where does 1t come from3 Steel companies used to depend largely on supplies from Russia, the Afrl. can Gold Coast, India and Brazil. Ore from these sources made good ballast cargo for the return voyages of vessels carrying fabricated steel abroad, and more Important, 1t Was ore of c high manganese content. Russian mines are now shut oft completely. Shipping shortages have interrupted deliveries from Africa and India. The U. 6. freighter Lee high, torpedoed in the South Ate lantic recently, was traveling light to pick up Q cargo of manganese ore. The Brazilian supply is hard to get ct, the quality is not too high. and there ls Q shipping pEob- lem here, too.
 If these shipping problems get worse, the burden of production B thrown on the North American low grade ore mines, located principally In Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Mons tana, Nevada New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia. There are lesser amounts in Idaho, Marys land, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming, and considerable production !n Cuba. The trouble Is that most os this can't be mined profitAhly in competition with the richer foreign ores. Furthermore, it might take six months to get these low grade mines into production.
 The stock pile of manganese is in somewhat critical position. Sup. plies on hand are estimated as Suf- flcient for II months only. Three. fourths of this stockpile, or 960,000 tons, according to an OpM survey, is now In the hands of the con- sumers, 10 principal steel and alloy companies and some 700 smaller users. The government pile of S60,- 900 tons makes up the other fourth oS the national reserve.
 To build up the stockpile, the gov. ernment owned RFC subsidiary metals reserve company has placed orders for nearly two million tons, but deliveries under these contracts have been negligible because of the shipping problem. To remedy this, on Nov. ], the metals reserve corn- pany announced it would consider contracts with Q. S. producers of low-grade ores having a manganese content of 70 per cent or more.
 SEEK HIGHER PRICES
 No contracts have been signed to start production of this domestic ore, but Q trade association, the American Manganese Producers As- sociation, is on the job in Washing. ton under the presidency of J. Car. son Adkerson, building honflres to get the price raised about 50 per cent which would, according to the association, start the domestic mines to producing automatically.
 The a per unit price which the industry iS seeking has an interest. ing background. It was first worked out in 1925 by . subcommittee of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. Tn 1883 the report was revised, and It's significant passage, now cited by the trade association, declares that, "All government would need to do would be to peg the price at once at the equivalent of q manganese index price, and the ore would be- gin to flow."
 Manganese production from U. 8. mines for the year io4I is estimated ct about 100000 tons. In the war year of 1918 1t was more than 3O0,. 900 tons, but even that production is far short of the estimated re. Quirements of 100000 tons 6 year. regardless Of what price subsidy the industry can get from Jesse Jones and his metals reserve company.