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Show Steel company, later taken over by the latter's subsidiary the Geneva Ge-neva Steel company. KAISER INTERESTED IN CO. BIDDING FOR IRONTON PLANT The prospects of the west's two leading steelmaking rivals U. S. Steel and Henry Kaiser making pig iron within a stone's throw of each other became a possibility when it was learned that Kaiser is substanaitlly interested in the Portsmouth Steel corporation of New Boston, O. This is the company which offered of-fered to buy and operate the idle No. 2 blast furnace plant at, Ironton, a war baby that died soon after its birth. v Capacity figures listed in 1945 Iron and Steel directory give the following figures for the Portsmouth Ports-mouth plant at New Boston: 108 coke ovens with an annual capacity capac-ity of 475,000 net tons; three blast furnaces with an annual pig iron capacity of 285,000 net tons, 10 open hearth furnaces with an annual an-nual capacity of 616,000 tons, plus rolling mills which included a blooming, bar, billet and sheet bar mills, and rod mills. The plant was also listed as having a wire department and facilities for producing pro-ducing a line of smaller products. Whether or not any substantial changes have been made in the plant since 1945 was not definitely known. By comparison, -Geneva has 252 coke ovens with an annual capacity capac-ity of 1,083,800 tons; three blast furnaces with a capacity of 1 150,-000 150,-000 tons, nine open hearths with a capacity of 1,150,000 tons, nine open op-en hearths with a capacity of 1,283,400 tons, plus a slabbing and blooming mill, plate mill and structural struc-tural mill. The War Assets administration must make its decision on the Ironton Ir-onton plants within 60 days. The Portsmouth company was the only firm to bid for the plant in its entirety, en-tirety, and the only one whicji offered of-fered to operate it. Kaiser's interest in the company compa-ny would assure Utah, coal and iron ore for the plant, if the Portsmouth Ports-mouth bid is accepted. Kaiser has rights to both of these raw materials mate-rials now being used for his Fon-tana Fon-tana plant. The No. 2 Ironton plant in question ques-tion ' is located just a few yards south of the original Ironton plant built in 1924 by the Columbia by U. S. Steel and now operated |