Busting Out All Over

National Steel Corp., fifth biggest U.S. producer, last week announced plans for a big plant on the Delaware River near Camden, N.J. to add 1,000,000 tons, or 22%, to its capacity. When the new plant and other expansion plans are completed, said National's Board Chairman Ernest T. Weir, the company will turn out 6,500,000 tons of steel a year. For the Camden mill, ore will be brought up the Delaware from the new Quebec-Labrador fields (TIME, Oct. 18, 1948) National is helping to develop.

Weir's new plant will be only 35 miles downriver from the new 1,800,000-ton capacity Fairless Works which U.S. Steel will build. The steelmen were taking advantage of quick, five-year write-offs of the new plants under the Defense Production Act, thus using cash that would otherwise be paid in taxes. By week's end, the National Security Resources Board had granted such write-offs on $1,200,000,000 in new steel plants. The steel industry, which only a few months ago had set its sights on a total capacity of 109,963,000 tons by 1952's end, had now boosted that goal to 115 million tons.

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