Political and commercial geology and the world's mineral resources

by Unknown

[30] Kemp, J. F.: “The Iron-Ore Resources of the World,” Stockholm, 1910 (with minor revisions).

The greatest single iron and steel industry in the United States is that of the United States Steel Corporation, which controls the following iron- and steel-producing companies: Carnegie Steel Co., Illinois Steel Co., Indiana Steel Co., American Steel & Wire Co., American Sheet & Tinplate Co., National Tube Co., The National Tube Co. of Ohio, Minnesota Steel Co., The Lorain Steel Co., Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co., and the Shelby Steel Tube Co., with a total of 124 blast furnaces, having an annual capacity of about 18,000,000 tons of pig iron. Most of the blast furnaces are in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Alabama.

With the United States Steel Corporation is connected the Oliver Iron Mining Co., which produces about 43 per cent. of the iron ore mined annually in the Lake Superior district, this being equivalent to nearly 37 per cent. of all the iron ore mined annually in the United States. The Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co. is the chief producer of iron ore in Alabama.

Next in importance to the United States Steel Corporation as a producer of iron and steel is the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, with its subsidiaries, the Bethlehem Steel Co., Pennsylvania Steel Co., Maryland Steel Co., Jurugua Iron Co., Spanish-American Iron Co., and Bethlehem Iron Mines Co.

The works of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation have a total pig iron-producing capacity of 3,060,000 tons annually from 23 blast furnaces. Seven of the furnaces are in South Bethlehem, Pa., seven in Steelton, Pa., four in Lebanon, Pa., three in Cornwall, Pa., and four in Sparrow’s Point, Md. The Bethlehem Steel Corporation owns large iron-ore deposits in Cuba and Chile. Most of the ore consumed in its furnaces at present comes from Cuba, from the Lake Superior district, and from Cornwall, Pa.

Third in importance of the iron- and steel-producing companies of the United States is the recently organized Midvale Steel & Ordnance Co., controlling Worth Brothers, Midvale Steel Co., Remington Arms Co., Cambria Steel Co., and others. The combined pig iron-producing capacity of the 14 blast furnaces controlled by the Midvale Steel & Ordnance Co. is 2,420,000 tons of pig iron. Three of the blast furnaces are at Coatesville, Pa., and eleven are at Johnstown, Pa. This company owns important iron-ore deposits in Cuba and in the Lake Superior district.

Four other large companies produce more than a million tons of pig iron annually, these being the Republic Iron & Steel Co., with an estimated total capacity from its 11 blast furnaces in Ohio and Alabama of 1,430,000 tons of pig iron, and of 2,500,000 tons of ore from its mines in the Lake Superior district and in Alabama; the Lackawanna Steel Co., with an annual capacity in 1918 from its nine blast furnaces at Lackawanna, N. Y., of 1,440,000 tons of pig iron; the Jones & Laughlin Co., of Pittsburgh, with a capacity of 1,920,000 tons from 11 blast furnaces; and the McKinney Steel Co., with eight furnaces in Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania, and an annual capacity of 1,205,000 tons of pig iron. The last three companies named have extensive iron mines in the Lake Superior district.

Important iron and steel companies producing somewhat less than a million tons of pig iron annually are: the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., with an annual capacity of 990,000 tons of pig iron from six blast furnaces, all of which are at Youngstown, Ohio; the recently organized Steel & Tube Co. of America, having six blast furnaces in and near Chicago, with an annual pig-iron capacity of 900,000 tons; the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., an important western iron and steel producer, which has six blast furnaces near Pueblo, Colo., with an annual capacity of 625,000 tons of pig iron, and has iron-ore mines in New Mexico, Wyoming, and Colorado; and the Schloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co. of Alabama, with seven blast furnaces and a pig-iron capacity of 530,000 tons. Many other plants with smaller capacity are scattered through eastern and central United States. So far as is known, practically the entire iron and steel business of the United States is in the hands of American capital.

Germany.

—The “minette” ore of the German Lorraine district before the war constituted by far the largest iron-ore reserve of Germany and is the chief source of present supply. Next in importance of the German ore reserves are the brown hematites occurring north of the Harz, and third and fourth in importance, respectively, are the deposits of the Lahn and Dill districts in the Rhineland, and those of Siegerland. All of these districts are in western and southwestern Germany and all of them, except Lorraine, are in the region lying east of the Rhine in Hanover, Westphalia, Hesse-Nassau, and Rhenish Prussia.