BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY SPARROWS POINT (MD.) PLANT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01333A000300030002-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 8, 2000
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: MISC

or Release 2000/lqf 1CIID80 . 33A03 30002-2
BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY
SPARROWS POINT (MD.) PLANT
be ~a n om, ?i ,
The Sparrows Point Plant of the Bethlehem Steel Company is located twelve
miles from Baltimore City on the Patapsco River near its junction with the Chesapeake Bay.
The land on which the Plant stands was deeded by Lord Baltimore to Thomas
Sparrow in 1652. About 230 years later, the Pennsylvania Steel Company selected the site
as an ideal place to build blast furnaces to convert foreign ore into pig iron. The iron to be
used at its Steelton, Pennsylvania, Plant in the manufacture of steel rails.
Records and photographs indicate windmills were erected to pump the marshes
dry, In 1889, after the blast furnaces started operating, slag was used to raise the surrounding
low lands above the water level. During construction of the plant facilities, the town of
Sparrows Point was laid out to provide housing for the employees. In those days, the only
method of transportation to and from Baltimore was by railroad or ferry, which made
commuting very difficult. By 1891, the original plans to ship pig Iron to Steelton had been
abandQned, and Bessemer Convertors were installed.
The first pig iron was produced in 1889 and the first steel in 1891. The
Bethlehem Steel Company took over the operation of the plant in 1916. At that time, the
Plant covered 300 acres and had an annual steel ingot capacity of 672,000 tons.
None of these facilities exist today except a few small buildings.:
A long range program of inoe-ernization and expansion began at Sparrows Point in the
early 1920"s with a broadening range of products and the installation of modern automatic
and continuous equipment to replace the older type mills, the Sparrows Point Plant grew
rapidly. In 1958, it became the largest steel plant in the country with a rated capacity of
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includes approximately 5,000 acres; of this amount, 3,000 acres constitute the Town,
Plant and Shipyard, while the remaining 2,000 acres are reserved for steel-consuming
industries and future plant expansions. The normal work force is 30,000, and the annual
payroll is $190, 000, 000 (over 3-1/2 million dollars per week). There are forty miles of
paved roads in Sparrows Point, including an elaborate new limited-access highway system
with four interchanges connecting with the principle public roads. The parking lots for our
employees have a capacity for 8,000 automobiles.
Daily water consumption approximates 655 million gallons. This exceeds
by more than 50% the average amount consumed each day for all purposes in Baltimore and
the Metropolitan Area. Of this amount we use 540 million gallons of salt water from the
Patapsco River. 100 million gallons is special cooling water, known as Industrial Water,
from the Baltimore City sewage treatment station, and approximately 15 million gallons of
fresh water from the City of Baltimore and our own artesian wells.
Most of the steel plant's electrical power is generated: by our own Pennwood
Power Station. This station has a rated capacity of 132, 000 KWs. Substantial amounts of
power are also generated or obtained from the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. . The
total amounting to approximately 1/400th of all the electricity generated in the entire United
States per day. There are 20, 000 electric motors that total over 800, 000 horsepower,
Approximately 15, 000 tons of soft coal are used daily. 150, 000 gallons of.
paint, and 30, 000 gallons of mastic material are used every year to protect the plant's
758 buildings, as well as machinery and other facilities.
There is a 38 foot deep channel that brings incoming ships, carrying iron
ore from overseas, to the 2, 200 foot ore dock paralleling the row of blast furnaces.
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For exporting steel there is a shipping wharf 870 feet long with a 120 x 500 foot warehouse.
The 33 foot deep access channel is almost two miles long with a width of 250 feet. Finished
steel is shipped directly from the plant's docks to points on the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific
Coasts of this country and to ports all over the world. In addition to easy accessibility of
the waterways, steel from Sparrows Point can also be delivered quickly by rail or highway
to the great industrial areas of the Eastern Seaboard.
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Bethlehem's terminal switching railroad, with L00 miles of track and 47 diesel-
electric locomotives, connects with the B & 0, Pennsylvania and Western Maryland Railroads.
Approximately 55% of produced products at Sparrows Point are shipped by rail, 25% by truck
and 20% by water.
Services, maintenance, and transportation requirements for the plant demands
of force of some 10, 000 persons.
The steel-consuming industries to which Sparrows Point furnishes steel products
cover the field all the way from small fabricating shops to huge enterprises in industry,
construction and transportation.
Included among the steel products manufactured at Sparrows Point are sheared
and universal plates; flanged and dished heads; many types of butt-weld and electric-resistance-
weld pipe, black and galvanized pipe and structural fence pipe; concrete reinforcing bars, and
a wide range of wire products, including low, medium and high carbon wire rods.
As many as 700 different types and sizes of nails alone are made on a large
battery of automatic nail machines, some of them capable of cold-heading 600 nails per
minute.
Also made at Sparrows Point are special-annealed bale ties; wire strand,
cable and stress-relieved strand for pre-stressed concrete; hot-rolled and cold-rolled
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A major phase of the Sparrows Point Plant operation is the storage of raw
materials. About four million tons of ore, received principally from South America and
Labrador, can be stored at the plant at one time. The capacity for storing coal, which
comes by rail or by rail and water from mines in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West
Virginia, is 700, 000 tons. Normal operations require about five and one-half million tons
of coal per year. There are also storage facilities for vast quantities of limestone, which
comes by rail from quarries in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Besides steel, an important phase of Sparrows Point's business is its output
of by-products such as coal chemicals recovered during the coke-making process. These
chemicals are sold to other manufacturers who use them in such products as plastics, dyes,
synthetic fabrics and drugs.
Work has been completed at Sparrows Point on one of the country's largest
tar distillation units. The plant was built to recover chemicals from coke oven tar for
further processing. The distillation plant has a capacity to process more than 50 million
gallons of tar per year into a chemical fraction containing crude naphthalene in quantities
estimated in excess of 42 million pounds annually.
Slag from the blast furnaces is sold to manufacturers of mineral-wool
insulating products, road materials, concrete and other building materials. Some slag
has been sold to the State of Maryland for use in propagating oyster beds in the
Chesapeake Bay.
Among points of interest at Sparrows Point are the ore dock, sintering
plant, ore screening station, blast furnaces and the coke oven areas. ' ere are 10 blast
furnaces having hearths that vary from 19'-9" to 28'-9" in diameter and in height from 95'
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to 1051-3". Pig n production exceeds 16,000 tons per day. There are 12 coke oven
batteries, each containing from 60 to 65 air-tight chambers for the coking of soft coal.
The No. 2 cokeoven battery has been recently rebuilt.
Coke oven chambers measure 40 feet in length, 13 feet in height and approci-
17
mately 18 inches in width. Each oven holds about`,':1-rtons of crushed coal. Coking time
usually takes from 18 to 20 hours. Total coke production amounts to 110 000 tops per day.
By-products recovered ih'the coking process are coal tar, ammonia,
ammonium sulphate, naphthalene, benzol, toluol, xylol, sulphur and small amounts of pyridine.
The Sparrows Point plant consumes all of its coke oven gas for use in the open hearth
furnaces, for underfiring coke oven batteries and. soaking pits as well as in various mill
and shop furnaces.
There are 35 open hearth furnaces at the Point. This is where pig iron and
scrap are refined into steel. The rated capacity of the furnaces ranges from 167 to 380
tons per heat. Heats of 430 tons are tapped from the large furnaces equipped with oxygen
lances. The largest furnaces are about 25 feet wide and 100 feet in length. Heat time
varies from five to ten hours, depending on the size of the furnace and the process being
used.
Another point of interest is the soaking pits where the ingots, varying in weight
from 13, 000 to 80, 000 pounds, are heated to a uniform rolling temperature. There are
four soaking pit buildings containing a total of 85 pits. Each pit holds about 12 ingots,
depending on their size. There are 40 rows of two-hole bottom-fired regenerative pits
and one five-hole row of recuperative, which are top-fired. Rolling temperature varies
from 2,250 to 2,450 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the carbon content of the steel.
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The soaking process takes three to five hours for hot steel and eight to fourteen hours for
From the soaking pits, the ingots are sent to the blooming and slabbing mill
operations for reduction to either slab or billet form before being shipped to the finishing
mills. There are two blooming and two slabbing mills. They are referred to as the 40-inch
and 54-inch bloomers and the 40 x 80-inch and 45 x 90-inch slabbers.
'dooms are usually rolled to a 10 x 10-inch cross-section for processing into
billets for the Rod and Wire Mills or into skelp for the Pipe Mills. Slabs range from 4 to 8
inches in thickness and from 16 to 72 inches in width. They are rolled into either plate or strip.
The 60-inch and 160-inch plate mills are where steel is converted into plates for
use in ship hulls, structural shapes, storage tanks and flanged heads. Plate sizes range from
3/16 to 14 inches in thickness, from 48 to 154 inches in width and up to 150 feet in length.
There are approximately 800 different sizes, types and grades of,pipe made at
Sparrows Point by the butt-weld and electric-weld processes. The Electric-weld Pipe Mill
produces pipe from 4-1/2 to 16 inches in diameter at speeds ranging from 60 to 120 feet per
minute, while the Butt-weld Pipe Mill produces pipe from 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter at
speeds ranging from 120 to 360 feet per minute.
The Sheet, Tin and Strip Division, which covers some 300 acres, processes
two-thirds of the total steel produced at Sparrows Point. Facilities of the -division include
the 56-inch and 68-inch hot strip mills; 48-inch tin mill, the 56-inch and 66-inch sheet
mills and two 42-inch cold reducing mills; the temper mills; pickling and annealing sections;
galvanizing and tinning lines; trimming, slitting and shearing equipment; coil preparation
lines and facilities for inspection, warehousing and shipping.
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The Rod and Wire Mill if another important part of the Sparrows Point
operation. The two rod mills have a combined capacity of 60 $ 000 tons per month of coiled
rod and reinforcing bars. Wire products made at the Point include nallh and staples, barbed
wire, bale ties, wire for welding rods., strand and cable, to nan e d few.
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Steel Plants
Pennsylvania
Maryland.
California
Bethlehem
Sparrows Point
Los Angeles
Johnstown
New York
So. San Francisco
Lebanon
Lackawanna
Washington
Steelton
Williamsport
Shipbuilding
and Ship Repair Yards
Massachusetts
New Jersey
Texas
East Boston
Hoboken
Beaumont
Quincy
Maryland
California
New York
Baltimore
San Francisco
Brooklyn
Sparrows Point
San Pedro
Fabricating Works
Pennsylvania
New York
California
Bethlehem
Buffalo
Alameda
Johnstown
Illinois
So. San Francisco
Leetsdale
I-L . _ _ _ _
Torrance
Rankin Texas Washington
Steelton Beaumont Seattle
Other Manufacturing Units
Massachusetts Virginia Illinois
Boston Richmond Clearing
New York North Carolina Michigan
Buffalo Charlotte Detroit
Staten Island Raleigh Romulus
New Je?sey South Carolina Minnesota
Dunellen Anderson Minneapolis
Pennsylvania Hallandale Los Angeles
Philadelphia Jacksonville
Maryland
Baltimore
Fairfield
BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY
BETHLEHEM, PA.
Sparrows Point
PM NI
BETHLEHEM STEEL
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The Sparrows Point P/ant
Located on tidewater near Chesapeake Bay, the
Sparrows Point Plant of Bethlehem Steel is the
largest steelmaking plant in the world.
The standard products include blooms, billets,
slabs, and skelp (semi-finished forms of steel used
in further processing) ; rods, wire, pipe, plate,
sheets, tinplate and blackplate; and by-products,
such as coal chemicals and blast-furnace slag.
.Specialty products include flanged-and-dished
heads, and pressed-plate products; concrete rein-
forcing bars; barbed wire; nails and staples; bale
ties; formed roofing and siding sheets; corrugated
galvanized culvert sheets; and wire strand.
Typical Uses for
Sparrows Point Plant
Products
Red springs, paper clips, and fencing made
of wire. Rain gutters and heating ducts of gal-
vanized sheet steel. Toys and venetian blinds of
blackplate, "tin" cans for vegetables and beverages
these are but a few of the myriad end uses for
steel produced at Sparrows Point. Thousands of
items are formed from wire alone. Steel plates
form the hulls and decks of merchant and naval
ships, and are used to fabricate bridges and heavy
machinery. Steel pipe carries water, steam, gases,
and fuel oils in homes and industrial plants.
Steel produced here is shipped to users along the
length of the Atlantic Seaboard, to the Pacific and
Gulf Coasts, and to ports across the seas. Much of
the finished steel is loaded on board ships berthed
at our own deeiwater docks.
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Facts about the P/ant
r in January 1958 it became the largest)
/ ? steel-producing plant in the world.
4 ? its normal work force is 31,000 men
and women, who draw an annual payroll
of about $190,000,000.
? every day the plant consumes 100
million gallons of industrial water,
15 million gallons of fresh water, and 540
million gallons of salt water.
within the plant are 40 miles of paved roads
and 100 miles of railroad track.
The plant covers an area of over 2,500 acres.
to supply its 20,000 electric motors as well as? `Ca
its other electrical needs, the plant
draws 1/400th of all the electric power S y
generated in the United States.
the 15,000 tons of coal burned
every day would heat 2,000 average
Baltimore homes for a year.
r~
n
the entire cargo of one 30,000-ton ocean-going
for one day's operation at capacity.
the Sparrows Point Plant has a
j
hi
d
ma
or s
pyar
as its next-door
neighbor. Operated by Bethlehem, this
yard builds merchant ships of all types.
Steel
for strength
. . economy
. . . versatility
Look for this steelmark
when you buy. You'll see
it in appliance stores, fur-
niture and hardware stores
---Wherever products of steel
are sold.
Highlights of Bethlehem Steel Company
? Bethlehem is the nation's second-largest steel
producer.
? Normal total employment is about 140,000.
? Number of stockholders is about 230,000.
? Bethlehem is the world's largest privately owned
shipbuilding and ship repair organization.
? 13,000 regular customers buy Bethlehem's
steel products which range from nails to f org-
ings weighing hundreds of tons.
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