POLISH METALLURGICAL INDUSTRY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80T00246A048900360001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 12, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 10, 1959
• Content Type: REPORT

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This material contains information affecting the National Defense of the United States within the messing of the Espionage Laws, Title
18, U.S.C. Seca. 793 and 794, the transmission or revelation of which la say manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
COUNTRY Poland
SUBJECT Polish Metallurgical Industry
DATE OF
INFO.
PLACE &
DATE ACQ.
DATE DISTR.
NO. PAGES
REFERENCES
metallurgical industry.
,'%25X1
,, will grow perhaps even more rapidly) the part~~rhi~h these ,two cou~tr~ie.~ plag~ in
the Polish foreign trade balance on the import side will grow proportional],y,
the Pol re canno e e m na e ; an a as ron ore
is mainly delivered by the USSR (and in the nea~,~u.ture the China import
1965.
future; iron ore production in Poland for 1957. and clans for 1960 and
of Polish mines under construction at presents and those planned for the
The report contairila._~;, information on the Polish import ~
of iron ores from various countries for the years 1953, 1957, and 1958;
total iron ore imports for 197 attd 181+9; quantity of iron ore imports
planned for 1960; number and location of iron ore mines in Poland number
X ARMY X NAVY X AIR X BI AEC
ORR Ev x
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It seems without a shadow of doubt that the metallurgy of steel
a1_ongside with metallurgy of non ferrous metals can be considered for
many reasons as the key problem of the Poland's ecpnomic,pol.itical
and staateg~cal situation. Economic- because upon it depends mainly
marline industry, a3~d it considered t~se bottleneck of machine industry
already several times in t he contemporary Poland's econor?~ic history.
Political _ because this only= branch depends wholely upon the deliveries
of iron ore front the Soviet Union. Strategically - firstly because the
deliveries are effected mostly throu~ch the bridge on the San river which
if destroyed stops the whole heavy industr~~ of Poland , secondly because
in its turn upon tha metallurgy of steel and iron depends the whole of defense
idustry.
Therefore this problem of central imnortamce deserves to be brought into ligh t
fros;~ the different poilits of view. Only the analysis from different angles
such as
Aietallurgy of steel and iron and its raw ms~terial basis
Metallurgy of steel and iron and tie f^reig n trade
Aietallurgy of steel and iron and its organizational level
Aietallurgy of steel and iron and the labor productivity
Aietallurgy of steel and iron and its technique
Aietallurgy of steel and iron and its separate production units (plants)
can put more light on the subject and brinr~ us nearer to more or less
ecom~bcally justified conclusions.
On this structure the present paper will be based.
Polish metallurgy of steel and iron employs ( the iron ore extraction
including) 132.300 employers (workers >nd salaried ).which represents 4,S?6
of the totally employed labor force in 157 (in industry). Its production,
taken in its value represent s 6,69G of the g lobally taken value of the
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industrial production ( global value shall not be confused here with the
net value which will be evaluated furlther )
It can be said , not without hesitation, ths~t polish metallurgy enjoys
partly favourable conditions for its existence and even developments.
Iron ore resources are rather scarce anal its Fe contents low, but on the
other hand - coal is found in a sufficient quantity,and other ingredients for
smelting- accessible.
The local iron ore resources areeve~[luated a4 about 500 million tons. Its
Fe contents is about 30'x. Moreover it s location ,which is extremely
unfavourable ?results in a low productivity in the iron ore extraction,
wh ich increases the production costa of iron ore extracted at home.
The Poland's iron ore extraction covers only about 14,5/ of the local demand
The external supplies amounted in 1957 about S,9 metric tons mostly from Russi
(4 million tons).
The r!metallurgy of steel and iron covers the lions share of the local demand
of rolled material from the ordinary and special steels. Import is effected
only in the domain of some assortments of rolled iron such as rods, rolled
iron,special steel rolled iron, The t otal import or rolled steel amounted
in 195? up to 200 t housand metric tons, which equals about 5,2% of the
local demand. At he same t ime a significant part of the home production,
namely 559 thousand metric tons of rolled iron (in 1957) is expected. This
applies mainly to iron sheets, thick and thin.
In the Polnad's metallurgy of steel and iron 25 blast furnaces are at work.
Their capacity attains 12 450 m3, _88 open hearts and 15 electic furnaces
(ovens working in the steel shops within the ^+achine and mecanical mills are
excluded fron the account here.. 56 sect ion ^+ills are in work. The
technical levels is very uneven (all these prnb lem will be treated more in
details elsewhere, this g iven as an int rnd~~ction),
.~- Z. ,-
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The part of property which has been constructed after the war posesses
machines and appliances which roughly correspond with the average level
of Western Europe. At the same time the big par~of existing production
Mock is empolyed already 30-50 years. From the total number of 25 blast
furnaces, 6 has been constructed afbrethe war ; its part in the total
conty production of iron amounts to 48,5/ (the dF~tailed datas will be given
further). Fro~? the totat number of RR open hearts which have nbeen working in
the polish metallurgy in 1957 - 21 have been co*~structed after the war.
Froi-~ t he total volume of the open heart ovens, 31% is installed in the
steel mills constructed 50-6o years ago, 22?6 in the steel mill constructed
30-50 years ago, 10?~ in the steel mills constructed 10-30 years ago and 37?,0
in the steel mills constructed iaxti~= less then 10 years ago. The part which
open hearts constructed after the war represent in the total production
of steel amounts to about 35/ in 1957. In t he total number of 56 section
mills (rolling aggregates) existing in the Polish metallurgy of steel and iron,
only 15 have been constructed after the war. From this very total number of
56 section mills, the aggregates working over 50 years represent 30?x,
from 30-50 years, 2$ percent ,from ten to t ]tirtr years - 14 / and below 10
years only 2R`/, The b l.oomings are c~mnargtively modern, but the rest of
plants are obsolete.
In 1957 particularly rapid rate of develepment was assured for the fo3lowing
deficit pasticts of metallurgy (in comnariso^ with 1956,where metallurgy
played a role of a serious bottleneck): thin sheets 336 more then a year before
thick sheets 27%, special steel 1?roducts 10?~ more. The special steel were
however in deficit still, and this deficit was partly covered in 1957 with
an import of 12 thouGand metric tons which amounted to nearly 3,5/ of total
home demand.
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Total investments in metallurgy of iron amounted in 1957 to 1.800 million
z lotys and were lower then in previox.~s years ~5~ of these funds have been
located in the Lenin's (Nova Huta) combine and the special steel mill
"ti~arszawa" in dYarsaw, Its effect can be part ly measured in the coke oven bat-
tery started in 1957 at Lenin mills (started in the meaning of production7~
fo ndr
steel ='~o production in the 6Yarszawa mill (which is the first sorking
shop in these mills), the and the roastin plant with two conveyors in the mill
Bierut in Czestoc howa. The rest of construction wa scontinued in the Lenin work;
where following construction was under way, partly finished in 1958
Cold strip mill
Blast furnace of t he 1386 m3 capacity
two open heart shops, 370 metric t ons each
In the ~Yarszawa works
steel mill, production of which would attain, after its completion,
abot 300 thousand metric tons, foundry, press shop and drawing aggregates shop,
and the construction of blooming was started, Blooming is expected, according
to plans, to posses s rolling cylindres of diameter 850 mm and production capa-
city 500-600 tons.
Location: The total rated ingot capacity of Poland for the year 1957 is 5,9
million net tons which. is produced as fo~~ows
5,5 million. net t ons open heart process
330.000 net tons electric furnace process
70,000 net tons two obsolete Bessemer process plants.
Excluding the Lenin work8, 88,%~ of t his i~+ rrorluced in the Upper Silesia
area.
The steel mills are located in the Ur.ner silesia area which is a sttrip about
8i 50 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide, between the cities od Dab rose
Gornicza and Gliwice. The industrial- statistics of this area are:
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Coal mining - 75 mines producing 100 million net tons of coal annually 25X1
Iron ore production- 1,9 million net tons ner year
Steel production- 4,2 million net ingot tons per year
Zinc production- 175.000 net tons ner gear
Electric power- 145 billion kilowatt hours
Long range expansion comprehends the following increases in capacity
1960 - 6.6 million net tons
19?0-1975 11 million net tons annual ingot capacity
It is interesting to note that the Upper Silesia area which in 1938
prodeced is?Yx 88ia of the industry capacity, will produce only 5o
at the completion of the 1970-1975 program.
The industry, to support its nig iron capacity, is mining 1,9 million net
tons of Polish ore, as has been said before. The exact ingredients are
.355 Phos and 32 % Fe. The imported Russian ore contains 04 Phod and
52io F'e,
The open heart facilities average hot metal chRrge of the industry is 60/70?ro
This high average is made Possible by charging an average of 60?o hot metal
in the stationary open heart furnaces, and up t o 80"~ in the tilting furnaces,
In the new plants and in the giant s which had undergone considerable
modernization,approxim~tely 1/3 of the oven heart capacit}* will be pro-
duced in tiliting furnaces.
Of the 330.000 tons o~ electric furnace canacity,5/ is 18-8 stainless,
3 straight chromium stainless grades, and the balance electric furnace alloy
high silicon > of eel fr~~?- above )
(close exasstination of local pocsibi?it~.es fn?'ocps before e~~~ of this chapter
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I
`l'he 1-ast problem which makes analysis in this chapter complete
is home production of iron ore and its possibilities. It
may be perhaps more useful to preseht this porblem districtwise,
DISTRICT
No of r+ineB
Producing
Under construct. Planned
Czestochowa
l0
5
3
Kielce-Radom
4
2
2
Leczyca
-
3
3
Kowary
1
-
-
Karpaty
1
Analysis
RFSERVE.S
FE
proven
possible
potential
Czestochowa
32%
62 ?~1M
42 1514
120 riI41
Kielce-Radom
29%
16 "
19 "
84 "
Leczyca
18-28/0
38 "
Kowary
40%
2 "
PRODUCTION
195? 1960 1965
Czestochowa 1.500.000 2,200,000 2.700.000
Kielce-Radom 230.000 300p000 600.000
Leczyca - 800.000 1.600.000
Kowar~~ 70, 000 - -
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t, 2 ~ I
As we see, the total production of steel grows in the time-period
1958-65 about63%, the total production of iron ore grows
in the same period from 2.300.000 to about 4.900.000 i.e.
110?io (or totally 210?0). Iron ore ufied per ton of steel tcrows
however also as the d"velopment is ~oin~^ to take place mostly
in the Leczyca District which ore contains the smallest percentage
of Fe .
To contribute to the problem of productivity and efficiency
anglysis of polish iron ore resources we can calculate the following
coefficients:
We establish here the economic calculus reflecting Firstly the cost
of extraction in zlotys per one dollar, and secondly tl~e cost
of extraction in zlotys per one dollar considering the construction
oY new mines in the fnrthcomnng period. We dive the comparison with
other minerals:
~brsax=~ l~=~ Copper Zinc Sulphur Phosphor Brown
Coal ~=s~ ore ore coal
ron ore
cokefiable 12,5
energy (flame) 41,5 87 40 25 100 it
17,8
cokef. 39,3
102,8 198 48 91,4 82 60
g'Je may now recapitulate the whole problem on the basis of Batas which
have been either extrapolated or given.
1. Import of iron ore cannot be eliminated and with development
of production of steel following rer*ularities will be observed:
a. As iron ore is mainls~ delivered b~? the USSR and in near future
the China import will ,grow perheps even more rapic~lti*, the part of
_ ~~
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these two countries in foreign trade balance on the import side will
grow proportionally.
b. Ts the home production of iron ore is going to grow mainly on
tke basis of iron ore deposits of low efficiency, the home production
cost of steel will grow. This may reflect in the prices of steel and i~h
its turn- in the lower efficienc~~ of machine export and construction.
Further effects may be less calculable but even more significant-
wit h the ratio of machine-expert effi~ienc.r going dowmvard, f some
clumping ideas which still haunt ~reatl?~ economic officials in both
Comc;~ission for Planning And the Alinistrv of Foreign Trade can be
then undertaken, with. the justification that comparative efficiency
with traditional polish exhort of coal and some agricul.tutal products
falls nonetheless and therefore the problem which comes into life
is either dumping or abandon. If dumping visa (which is now granted only
in eases of export of complete enterprises considered as pioneer export)
be widely applied, the next problem is-where to dump ? It seems that
in this case the comeback to strfctl~* political export-import (namely
so-called neutral underdeveloped countries may be marked)
l.c. Some switches in sPeciali~s~tion may take place with the change
of production factors in machine prod