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Show Steels Answer Truman With Record Output In '48. Bigger In '49 Companies of the iron and steel industry spent a record amount, totaling $583,000,000 during 1948 to expand and improve im-prove their production facilities, American Iron and Steel Insti- ' tute announced today, Even more money will be spent this year, the institute : said. The expenditures will be raised to a total of $027,000,000. A total outlay of more than two billion dollars will have been made by the end of this year for postwar expansion and improvement. At that time it is expected that annual steelmak-ing steelmak-ing capacity will be at a record high level exceeding 98,300,000 tons. An additional 500,000 tons will be added in 1950. The huge total outlay last year enabled the companies to increase their combined steel- making capacity by more than 1,887,000 tons. In addition to constructing and improving steel furnaces, the companies increased in-creased the capacities in their b.ast furnace, coke oven, and other raw material departments and added to processing and finishing fin-ishing facilities in order that the additional raw steel could be made into useable finished products. This year's plans for a record outlay of $627,000,000 will increase in-crease steel capacity by about 2,200,000 tons, and provide necessary nec-essary facilities to roll that additional ad-ditional steel into finished products. pro-ducts. The Institute cited a comparison compari-son to illustrate the sharp increase in-crease in the cost of expanding and improving facilities. The amount spent last year, when 1,887,000 tons of capacity was added, was more . than four I times greater than ten years earlier when about 1,600,000 tons was added to raw steel capacity ca-pacity with the companies' expenditures ex-penditures totaling only $140 -000,000. ' |
