Industry: Back to Glamour

As the nation’s second most widely used metal (after steel), aluminum is a fair barometer of prosperity, since it is still considered a “glamorous” metal and is usually more expensive than steel. The industry, hit by an economic recession, overcapacity and a cutback in Government stockpiling, has not looked very glamorous since 1958. But rising U.S. wealth has brought back some of the shine to aluminum. Nowadays it seems to be almost everywhere, from towering curtain-wall skyscrapers to a whole new family of seamless, zip-top, snap-top and soft-top aluminum cans. Though profits have not yet kept pace, production is running at 95% of capacity, and shipments have risen 11% so far in 1963, to an annual rate of 3,100,000 tons.*

Esthetic Triumph. Aluminum was once shaped mostly into airplanes or pots and pans, but its new uses are many. Production of aluminum cans will double this year to 160 million Ibs., and President John D. Harper of Alcoa, the giant of the industry, figures that next year the metal will be used in 75% of all beer cans. Alcoa is also perfecting a process in which seamless aluminum cans can be formed in a single operation from one small disc of metal, and is working toward a kitchen triumph: the first easy-to-open sardine can, a zip-top.

The average 1964 auto includes 70 Ibs. of aluminum, up 7 Ibs. from two years ago. Reynolds is working on car wheels and an engine made of aluminum. Alcoa is marketing portable buildings that can be zipped together or taken apart in hours, are especially suitable for branch banks, temporary schools or mobile offices. The electric power industry is a particularly attractive area for marketing light metal; Reynolds supplied the cable for a 350-mile power line looping through West Virginia and Virginia, and Kaiser sold the first all-aluminum transmission tow er to Florida Power Co. Aluminum is going into more and more boats as well as into railroad cars and truck bodies; New Orleans’ Avondale Shipyards recently launched the world’s largest aluminum barge, a giant whose lightness enables it to carry 14% more cargo weight than similar steel barges.

Scramble Overseas. With such advances, the U.S. now uses 29 Ibs. of aluminum per person annually—three times as much as any other nation. But demand for aluminum is growing even faster abroad. Alcoa is building plants in Australia, Surinam and Mexico, hopes to raise its overseas capacity 30% within three years. Reynolds is putting up a mill in Canada and a fabricating plant in Turkey, and Kaiser has opened plants in India and West Germany. Recently, Kaiser joined Canada’s Aluminium Ltd., France’s Pechiney and Britain’s Rio Tinto-Zinc Corp. in ambitious plans to build and operate a $112 million alumina plant in Australia. When all the world finally takes to aluminum, the U.S. companies plan to be there—profitably.

-Puny beside steel’s 108 million tons, but aluminum weighs so much less.