User:Nowakki/KSC

Water

The absence of an adequate supply of water for a steel mill presented an obstacle that had to be overcome with a stringent system of wastewater recycling. Only 5 percent of the average flow of 50,000 gallons per minute (as of 1945) was from the outside supply. All of the water was recycled except that used for coke quenching and that used as cooling spray in the pig casting machine.

Raw material composition before 1948

In the beginning the blast furnace ran on 100% Sunnyside coal and 100% Vulcan ore. In September 1943 an average rate of 1154 tons of pig iron per day with a coke rate of 1788 pounds per ton was achieved. In May 1944, low volatile coal from Arkansas and Oklahoma was added to the mix. The Vulcan ore was of acceptable quality at first, but over time its sulphur content rose to an unacceptable average of 1.2%, which the sinter plant running at capacity could not compensate for. In December 1944, Iron Mountain (Utah) ore was added. In May 1945 an average pig iron production of 1245 tons per day with a coke rate of 1468 pounds per ton was reached. Eventually with a composition of 50-50 Utah ore and Vulcan sinter in May 1947 daily average pig iron was 1340 with a coke rate of 1363. Utah Construction Co. built a 1500 tons per day processing plant to fulfill the contract for over 1 million tons of w:Iron Mountain District ore.

Blooming mill conversion in 1947

The 36-inch breakdown mill, first rough rolling step of the structural mill, was originally intended to eventually roll blooms produced by a blooming mill, not part of the original plant to save costs and lessen the burden on the war time heavy machine industry. Without a blooming mill, Fontana had to use light-weight, bottom-poured ingots (average 6,300 pounds) suitable for direct rolling in the structural and plate mills and the overhead was significant. When processing ingots for the structural mill, the ingots were first rolled into blooms and then reheated and rolled a second time on the 36-inch mill.

Instead of adding a blooming/slabbing mill, the breakdown mill was converted into a combined blooming, slabbing and breakdown mill. The average ingot weight increased to 17,000 pounds. The room left unoccupied between the soaking pits and breakdown mill had to be bridged with a permanent ingot buggy service.

The rate of consumption of ingots by the rolling mills increased from 500,000 to 1,200,000 tons per year, primarily as a result of the higher efficiency of heavy ingots moving through the soaking pits and an increase from 12 to 18 in the number of soaking pits. The ingot delivery rate of the soaking pits rose from 64 tons per hour to 172 tons per hour. The alterations were made in the winter of 1946/47.

1947 expansion ($11.5m)

Attached to the restructuring of RFC loans authorized in August and September 1945 was a new $11,500,000 loan for the construction of additional facilities, to include a cold strip mill, a Fretz-Moon butt-weld hot-forming air blast-welded continuous pipe mill for diameters between 0.5 and 4 inches and the conversion of the merchant mill to also produce narrow skelp for them both. The new mills came online after considerable delay in January 1948. Nine sizes of pipe could be produced at a maximum rate of 750 feet per minute and 120,000 tons per year.

In early March 1948 the RFC authorized a $3,000,000 expansion for a 100,000 tons a year open hearth furnace (apparently this did not include a loan). Also in March, Kaiser was trying to get RFC support for a hot strip mill, which was seen as an essential piece of equipment for the mill.

1949 expansion ($35m)

A Yoder cold-forming electric-weld pipe mill for diameters between 4.5 and 14 inches was ordered in September 1948.

The #2 blast furnace, #3 coke oven battery, 86-inch strip mill and Yoder pipe mill would eventually form a $35 million expansion program.

1949 pipeline

A $60 million contract to supply 500,000 tons of plate over 2 years for the w:Transcontinental Pipeline was the reason to build furnace #2 and coke oven battery #3 for $17,000,000, privately financed. The pipe was fabricated by Basalt Rock in Napa and Consolidated Western Steel in Maywood.

In June 1950, a 255,000 tons contract valued $35 million for the $80 million, 1300-mile, 26-inch natural gas pipeline of the Trunkline Gas Supply Co. from McAllen, Texas to Tuscola, Illinois brought the total in pipe contracts to over $100 million and over 750,000 tons. Fabrication by Basalt Rock in Napa.

Bought Sunnyside mines in 1950

On April 11, 1950 Kaiser Steel bought all outstanding 100,000 shares of the Utah Fuel Co. for $6,800,000, outbidding the only competitor, the managers of the Utah Fuel Co. The shares of Utah Fuel Co. were pledged as collateral in a 50 year old D&RGW Railroad bond issue, an auction was ordered by court to pay the bondholders. The property included 6 mines: Sunnyside, Castle Gate and Clear Creek in Carbon County, Utah and the Somerset, Oliver and Dearborn mines in Colorado.

Coking time reduction in 1950

During April and May 1950 experiments were carried out with a coking time of 16 hours instead of the accepted industry practice of 20 hours. The tests were entirely successful, the negative consequences in the form of slightly higher coke rate and increased carbon deposits in the coke ovens were hardly distinguishable from operational fluctuations. During the rest of 1950, 1951 and 1952 an average of 280 tons of coke per day did not have to be purchased on the market and the increase in oven efficiency resulted in a proportional reduction in capital required for all subsequent coke plant expansions.

1953 expansion ($8m)

On November 11, 1953 Kaiser announced an $8 million expansion to increase flat rolled products by 17%, made possible by the open hearth furnaces consistently producing above rated capacity.

• Electrolytic tinplate from 130,000 to 200,000
  • to meet the demand of the West Coast can industry of 875,000 tons
  • no increase in hot-dip tinplate
• 36-inch blooming mill converted to 48-inch and a slab handling yard and third slab reheat furnace added in the plate mill
  • increase plate/hot strip output by 10,000 per month
• coil conveyor to replace freight car haulage for hot coils going to the tin plate mill
• additional annealing equipment in the tin plate mill

The program was financed by 4.5% 20-year sinking fund bonds sold to life insurance companies.

Koehler mine

The Koehler mine, 23 miles southwest of Raton (\{\{coord|36.73981|-104.64741}}) in Colfax County, New Mexico was the only mine in operation on the 530,000 acre property when purchased in 1955. It was originally opened in 1907 and produced coal until 1923, when it was closed down until reopened in 1942 and in continuous operation since with a peak annual output of 750,000 tons of very good quality high volatile bituminous coal.

Most of the coal was going to Colorado Fuel & Iron for eventual use in the blast furnace, but in 1953 activity declined abruptly as a result of CF&I opening their own Allen mine in Las Animas County, Colorado.

Kaiser Steel had also just finished modernizing the Sunnyside mine and had opened Sunnyside #3 in 1953/54, albeit Fontana also required more coal for the new #3 blast furnace.

Furthermore a decline in industrial activity in 1954 caused a matching decline to 75 percent of capacity for coke oven plants in the United States, compared to 93 percent in 1953.

Coal delivered from the state of New Mexico to one furnace plant In Colorado and one furnace plant in California

Year	CF&I	Kaiser	Ref	Year	CF&I	Kaiser	Ref
1940				1950	308,368	36,728
1941	53,050			1951	500,420
1942	214,347			1952	396,343	100,578
1943	237,861	2,055		1953	254,665	104,353
1944	259,490			1954	55,857	5,886
1945	292,727			1955		12,366
1946	310,300	457		1956		18,831
1947	537,300
1948	534,301
1949	326,524	27,551

In 1957, with 10,000,000 tons of estimated recoverable reserves and as part of the 1958 $194m expansion program, a thorough modernization was undertaken, accompanied by a continuing exploration program underway since June 1956 on the rest of the property.

Improvement	Before	After
width x height of 7 miles of haulage ways	below 10ft x 6ft	at least 14ft x 6.5ft
new working section(s) 3 miles deep	1 ?	2 ?
track gauge	40in	48in
rail cars	2.5-ton	15-ton, LxWxH in feet: 27.5 x 7.5 x 4
locomotives	?	27-ton cable-and-trolley-reel type
miners	?	planned max: four Joy 6 CM continuous miners (Sunnyside design)
coal washing plant moved 1 mile closer, to the tipple	175 tons raw coal / hr	250 tons
Clean coal capacity (75% of raw coal)	?	3,250 tons / day

The Koehler mine was beginning to produce coal at a rate of 500 to 600 tons per day in the summer of 1958, when an underground fire was detected on June 8, a Sunday morning, at the T-shaped intersection of the two main haulageways, 6,800 feet from the portal, 6,200 feet and 8,500 feet from the two respective work sections. The fire was confined to a sealed area 400 x 600 feet 14 months later at a cost of $750,000 and on August 11, 1959 the government gave permission for mining to continue.

On January 16, 1959 Fontana #4 blast furnace was blown in, 90 new coke ovens came online as well.

In 1960 New Mexico coal production doubled (from 148,000 to 295,000 net tons, still only 0.07% of the national total and the highest since 1953), largely because of the now regular production at Koehler, by far the biggest active coal mine in the state. In that year 203,546 tons of clean coal were produced at the mine by an average work force of 106 men, working 153 days, well below capacity.

Iron ore export

Shipment of iron ore to Japan began in October 1962. In three days between December 21 and 23, 1963, three Japanese ore carriers loaded a record 142,000 tons. The Kotoura Maru took 26,880, The Long Beach Maru, arriving at Long Beach on her maiden voyage, loaded 58,240 and Santa Isabel Maru took another 57,120 tons. In December 1971 it was announced that exports would not be continued due to lack of economic viability. Eagle Mountain shut down between January and March 1972 to reduce stockpiles.

1979 expansion ($233m)

In 1976 the projected cost rose to $200 million with the addition of a 700,000 tons per year, $50 million continuous slab caster.

The final project cost was $233 million. The first heat was cast in the new slab caster on March 2, 1979. The continuous caster only accounted for 25% of the steel processed in the plant.

Misc

The Montebello Fabrication Division moved to Fontana in 1965, to a 60 acre site bought from the Taylor Pipe & Forge Works, where the main factory building was refurbished and enlarged to 900 feet length with one 90 foot bay and two 75 foot bays (216,000 sqft). Taylor Forge of Chicago had been making spiral weld pipe there, but the plant was idle for two years when purchased by Kaiser. The site directly adjacent to the steel plant hosted the ordnance forge during World War II.

Corrections

Rio Tinto's share in Hamersley Iron rose from 54 to 82.3% in 1979.

The New York Times article does not state that production increased during the Korean War.

WIP

work in progress