Firing Up

Blast furnaces glowed and roared in the steel centers of Pittsburgh, Youngstown and Chicago last week as the steel industry jacked its operating rate to 88.2%, the eighth consecutive weekly boost. According to this key barometer of the economy, the outlook has seldom been better. Last week's scheduled output of 2,129,000 tons was the best in two years, within striking distance of the alltime high of 2,324,000 set the week of March 23. 1953. With order backlogs soaring, the trade magazine Iron Age said: "If the rate of incoming business holds, raw steel output may reach 94% to 95% capacity sometime in March or early April."

The biggest demand came from the auto industry, which last week turned out 175,000 cars for its second record week in a row. General Motors' output of nearly 86,000 cars and Chrysler's 34,000 were the highest ever; Ford's 44,000 was a postwar peak. Throughout the auto industry, plants were working Saturdays and overtime to get the cars to market.

What encouraged steelmen most was the fact that demand from other industries was still growing. Railroad carbuilding was picking up, with a corresponding upswing in orders for steel bars and plate. The booming construction industry was putting the pressure on producers of galvanized sheets, while appliance makers, striving to furnish the nation's new houses, were ordering enameling sheets for delivery months in the future. To stock the kitchen shelves, the canning industry boosted its orders for tin plate, with the seasonal high still to come.

The quickening pace was felt by big and small alike. Youngstown Sheet & Tube and Sharon Steel each fired up an additional open hearth at their Youngstown plants. And Crucible Steel, which since the war has poured $100 million into new plants instead of paying cash dividends, declared a quarterly payment of 50-c- a share, first since 1946.

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