Middleweight Champ

In the Nevada desert, during World War II, the U.S. spent $140 million to build the world's biggest magnesium plant. Around it, the Government built a brand-new town, called Henderson. At war's end, the plant shut down; its vast shops were used as warehouses. But last week the U.S. was putting the big plant back to work again to uncork one of the tightest bottlenecks in jet aircraft production. Pittsburgh's Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp. and Manhattan's National Lead Co. announced that their jointly owned Titanium Metals Corp., with a fiveyear, $14,163,000 tax write-off from the Government, is converting the plant to mass production of titanium metal.

Violent Reaction. U.S. military production desperately needs titanium as a substitute for columbium, a rare metal which makes steel fit to stand the 1,600-o hellfire inside a jet-engine combustion chamber. Almost all the world's supply of columbium ore comes from primitive mines in Nigeria; the U.S. was able to get only 1,727,000 Ibs. last year. Since world production of columbium cannot be stepped up for another three years, the U.S. has turned to titanium. Luckily, it is one of the most abundant minerals in the earth's crust, and the U.S. abounds in titanium-bearing ore. But turning it into metal is an immensely difficult process. It reacts so violently with oxygen that the ingots must be melted in a vacuum, or under a blanket of inert gas.

The problem does not faze Allegheny Ludlum's Chairman Hiland G. Batcheller. As the world's biggest producer of stainless steel (210 million Ibs. shipped last year), his company has long had its eye on titanium. When National Lead, the biggest U.S. supplier of titanium ore, suggested a partnership two years ago, Batcheller jumped at the chance. Their co-owned subsidiary, using Allegheny-Ludlum's mills, has already been processing small quantities of the metal. But total production--including that of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.--this year will be only 500 tons. And the average price ($21,000 a ton) is still stratospheric.

No Limit. With the big-scale facilities at Henderson, and plenty of power from nearby Hoover and Davis Dams, Batcheller believes that Titanium Metals can bring down the price and boost U.S. production to 4,100 tons by September 1952, more than eight times the present world output. The immediate goal is to get enough for jet-engine alloys. But Titanium Corp. has its eyes on a far bigger potential market for the metal. Titanium, because it is 56% lighter than alloy steel, and heavier but 300% stronger than aluminum, has been dubbed the "middleweight champ." As the price comes down and production techniques improve, they believe the new wonder metal will have an unlimited future.

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