STEEL: A First for Bethlehem

When the blunt-bowed oreboat, S.S Bethore, nosed into its mooring at Sparrows Point, Md. last week, the red carpet was rolled out by Bethlehem Steel Corp executives. The ship carried the first load of Venezuelan iron ore (22,000 tons) ever to be brought to the U.S. The ore came from Beth Steel’s open pit mine in the state of Bolivar. Bethlehem eventually expects to get 3,000,000 tons a year for its big Sparrows Point steel mill in return for the ten years of work and $50 million poured into the Venezuelan project. It has built a highway, a railway (the only standard gauge in Venezuela) and three communities in the jungle. Bethlehem thinks the money well spent; its Venezuelan beds hold an estimated 60 million tons of ore, which is richer than the fast-vanishing deposits in Minnesota’s Mesabi Range.

While it scoured the globe for new ore supplies, Bethlehem was not overlooking any in its own backyard. Last week the company announced that it will begin developing a body of magnetite ore near Morgantown, Pa., only 80 miles from Sparrows Point. The ore, lower grade than Venezuela’s, was discovered last year by airborne prospectors using a Magnetometer (an adaptation of the magnetic detection devices which trapped Nazi submarines during World War II). Ore will start coming out of the Morgantown mines in 1953, and Pennsylvanians hope it will bring a revival of the state’s once-great ore-mining industry.