End of a Shortage

Beneath a bright Gulf Coast sun near Corpus Christi last week, 20,000 visitors trooped curiously through Reynolds Metals Co.'s spanking new $80 million aluminum plant. They ate free Eskimo Pies* and hotdogs kept warm on freshly poured pigs of aluminum, while a high-school band blared Whistle While You Work. Reynolds Metals' pudgy, 43-year-old President Richard S. Reynolds Jr./- had something to whistle about: he now has the world's biggest aluminum pot-line.

The New Giant. How big Reynolds' empire is may be measured by the fact that in 1939, U.S. aluminum production was only 327 million Ibs., and all of it was made by Alcoa. The new Reynolds plant alone will make 160 million Ibs. a year. Moreover, when Reynolds completes its new $35 million reduction plant at Arkadelphia, Ark., the company's total aluminum capacity will be 829 million Ibs., 2 1/2 times the whole nation's prewar production. Reynolds itself, little more than a maker of packaging foil before World War II, will then be the nation's No. 2 basic producer of aluminum. Not only Reynolds, but Alcoa and Kaiser, the other members of the big three, have been expanding as well. Because of the power shortage, the new plants have shunned the hydroelectric centers (TVA, Bonneville, etc.) where aluminum plants used to cluster, have had to seek alternative sources of cheap power.

Reynolds' new plant burns natural gas (40 million cu. ft. daily) as does Kaiser's new $115 million plant at New Orleans. Alcoa, still kingpin of the Big Three, will soon complete an $80 million plant at Rockdale, Texas, using lignite, a peatlike fuel.

All this swift growth has boosted the industry's total capacity 30% since the Korean War began.

New Uses. By last week aluminum had grown so plentiful that NPA began taking off some of the restrictions on its use in building, e.g., starting July 1, each builder will be allowed 250 Ibs. per quarter. Far from presaging a glut, this prospect encouraged aluminum boosters like Dick Reynolds to predict that aluminum was just beginning to tap its future markets. "For the first time," said Reynolds, "there will be enough aluminum for major potential users to consider its use on a large scale." Alcoa's President Irving White Wilson is even more optimistic. Says Wilson: "Can we sell all this aluminum we are gearing up to produce? Yes, and maybe quite a lot more. Aluminum has only begun to realize its ultimate potentials."

Plenty of new uses are already appearing. For example, Buick's Dynaflow transmission alone uses 20 Ibs. of aluminum v. 7 Ibs. formerly used in the entire automobile. Chrysler is using aluminum in disc brakes; Nash is using aluminum extrusions for doors. G.E. is using it to replace brass in the base and sockets of light bulbs. Building (aluminum window frames, doors, roofing, which never need painting and last virtually forever) is already using one-third of total output.

The Government, not convinced that the U.S. has aluminum capacity to meet all emergencies, is holding a meeting this week to decide whether to launch a new expansion of 150,999 tons. But aluminum makers believe that present capacity alone will provide enough so that, by 1952's fourth quarter, all Government restrictions on. aluminum use can be lifted.

*Now controlled by Reynolds, which long made Eskimo Pie foil-wrappers.

/- Not to be confused with tobacco-heir Richard J. Reynolds, his first cousin once removed.

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