Of the Corporation’s total coke by-products capacity to-day, consisting of 2,992 ovens with an annual capacity of 11,960,200 net tons of coke, 131,805,500 gallons of tar, 174,960 net tons of ammonia sulphate, 99,550,900 cubic feet of gas, and 45,785,000 gallons of benzol and other light oils, 53.6 per cent., or more than half, was installed under war pressure, much of it at inflated cost, for patriotic rather than for commercial reasons.
Actual expenditures by the big company in this field subsequent to the commencement of the World War aggregated $62,000,000 as compared with about $16,000,000 prior to August 1, 1914. These figures reflect the increased cost of construction due to war conditions, and make it easy to believe the assertion that much of the work done would never have been undertaken had it not been for the urgent need of the United States and the Allies.
When the war started, the Steel Corporation owned 1,452 by-product coke ovens, of which 120, at the Benwood, W. Va., plant were operated under a lease with the Semet-Solvay Co., this lease having been operative when the Corporation was formed. Another 212 ovens were acquired when the Corporation purchased the Union Sharon Steel Co., and the remaining 1,120 were constructed by the Corporation itself at its Joliet, Ill., Gary, Ind., and Fairfield, Ala., plants. These ovens had an annual capacity of 5,545,500 tons of coke, 44,888,400 gallons of tar, 66,750 tons of sulphate of ammonia, and 45,472,900 cubic feet of gas.
Between August 1, 1914, and April 6, 1917, the Corporation installed an additional 1,118 ovens, of which 90 were at its Duluth plant, 640 at Clairton, Pa., 208 at Lorain, Ohio, and 180 at Cleveland, Ohio. These new plants were equipped to produce benzol, and at the same time, the plants existing prior to the war were similarly equipped.
Since April 6, 1917, an additional 140 ovens have been installed at Gary, bringing the capacity of that plant to 700 ovens, an additional 128 at Clairton, and 154 at Fairfield, Ala. In the last two instances, the construction of the plants was made in response to direct requests of the Government, although the Corporation bore the entire expense. At the end of the war the big company had a capacity of about 40,000,000 gallons of benzol, etc., since increased to the figure already given, 45,785,000.
The Corporation’s by-products ovens constitute 25.2 per cent. of all such ovens in the United States. Its actual production is somewhat higher than this percentage, which indicates how valuable were its activities along these lines in the prosecution of the war.
Although constructed largely to meet the then-existing emergency, this capacity serves a valuable end under peace conditions. In fact, as suggested elsewhere in these pages, it is only a question of time when the old wasteful beehive coke process shall have been consigned to oblivion and the newer by-product method used exclusively. Benzol, one of the principal war products, is used commercially as a motor fuel, in the manufacture of dyes, in the rubber industry, and for the purpose of enriching illuminating gas. Ammonia is used as a fertilizer (in the form of sulphate), in refrigeration, and in the chemical industry. Tar is used for heating purposes in the manufacture of steel, and for distillation by which are recovered carbolic oils, used for disinfecting; creosote oil, used as a wood preservative; anthracine oil, used in making certain dyes; and pitch, for road making, roofing, etc. The surplus gas generated in the process is used, as stated already, for heating purposes in the manufacture of steel and for municipal gas uses.
Further, if the day comes when the United States will have to draw the sword again, the big company’s capacity of coke by-products will be of immense military importance.
The work done by the Corporation in extending its capacity for war purposes covers too wide a range to be detailed here. Besides the activities already outlined, it included the erection at Gary of a gun-forging plant for field guns and howitzers and, at the same plant of new mills for rolling projectile steel. At Chicago, four electric furnaces were installed to produce special steel for gun forgings and other military uses; at Homestead, the armor-plate department already in existence was enlarged and new facilities installed to make forgings for gun carriages. At the Homestead and Schoen plants of the Carnegie Steel Co., and the Ellwood and Christy Park plants of the National Tube Co., shell-forging equipment, giving an annual capacity of 4,000,000 shells, was constructed, and at the last-named plant machinery was also put in for making torpedo and submarine air flasks, gas bombs, trench mortars, and other war material. At various plants of the American Steel & Wire Co. machines were installed to make special barbed wire for trench use and some of these plants were equipped to manufacture rope for submarine nets and mines, and a number of other Allied uses. These are only a few of the more important of its war-manufacturing activities.
