SOUTH AFRICAN STEEL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 July 1940, Page 9

SOUTH AFRICAN STEEL

INCREASING PRODUCTION. The output of iron and steel, at Iscor, South Africa, is being increased and will shortly reach 440.000 tons a year. The initial ingot output at the new steel works to oe built at Vereeniging is intended to be'260.000 tons a year, making an annual total from the combined works of 700,000 tons of ingot steel. The new works at Vereeniging will be complementary to, and part of, the Iscor organisation. This announcement is made in the official journal of the South African Iron and Steel Industrial Corporation, Limited. Iscor will use a process extensively employed in the United States on all qualities of steel. It combines the high output of the Bessemer converter with the accurate quality control of the basic open hearth furnace. The effect on Iscor operation will be to increase the output of steel by about 30 per cent. A noteworthy development is the recent production of heat-treated bulletproof armour plate, shrapnel-proof sheets for helmets and high-grade alloy steels for the manufacture of guns. Iscor is at present preparing plans for a wire works capable of producing some 30,000 tons annually of plain and galvanised wire, barbed wire and wire netting.