Iron Ore Price Decline Hurts U.S. Steel’s Cost Advantage Over Rivals

U.S. Steel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

U.S. Steel Corp.’s cost advantage over competitors from owning its iron ore mines is shrinking as the price of the commodity used to make steel sinks to a four-year low.

Analysts said iron ore’s decline to $70 a metric ton puts pressure on the Downtown-based steelmaker because competitors will benefit from lower raw material costs that U.S. Steel has long enjoyed. That pressure will mount as steel prices follow iron ore prices lower, especially helping competitors with lower production costs such as Nucor Corp., U.S. Steel’s chief rival.

“The U.S. Steel guys are going to have to work real hard to separate the revenue declines from external forces,” said John Tumazos of Very Independent Research of Holm-del, N.J. “Everything they’ve done in the last two years to cut costs was necessary, but everything points to more cost cuts.”

Under CEO Mario Longhi’s leadership, the Downtown-based steelmaker has closed mills, saved $500 million by halting an iron ore expansion project in Keewatin, Minn., relinquished control of its money-losing Canadian unit and saved $495 million under its Carnegie Way initiative to cut costs and return to profitability.

Read more: http://triblive.com/business/headlines/7191828-74/steel-ore-iron#ixzz3JosqYOZp
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Tragedy And Danger Discovered In Pottstown’s Mining Heritage

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jefferson M. Rightnour left his wife and six children at their home in Fruitville, a small collection of houses in Limerick Township, Montgomery County, on Sept. 1, 1880, and walked to his job in what is now Pottstown.

The 6-mile trek must have been a hardship, but it was nothing compared to what was waiting for him. Rightnour was the boss of a copper mine; he worked underground with a pick, shovel, and wheelbarrow, busting through sandstone to get to copper ore.

The mine was located on a 40-acre farm owned by James Gilbert in what was then Pottsgrove Township. An 1877 atlas of Montgomery County shows that Gilbert’s farmhouse was probably what is now the business office for Highland Memorial Park at 701 Farmington Ave. The precise location of the mine isn’t known, but it was probably somewhere along the slope of the hill in that area.

Copper had been mined there in the mid-1850s, but the endeavor was unprofitable and was soon abandoned. In July of 1874, a group of investors from Phoenixville took a crack it. The Daily Pottstown Ledger reported that excavators reopening the shaft found, at a depth of 18 feet, a wheelbarrow and box of potatoes — reportedly still “in good condition” — relics entombed in the 1850s workings.

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/lifestyle/20140504/tragedy-and-danger-discovered-in-pottstowns-mining-heritage

A 16th-Century Method May Revolutionize Mine Drainage Treatment

A technology dating to the 16th century and built with PVC piping available at any Home Depot or Lowe’s soon will be used to enhance and possibly revolutionize the treatment of abandoned mine drainage, still Pennsylvania’s biggest water quality problem.

The technology, called “trompe,” an old French word meaning trumpet, is a water-powered air compressor with no moving parts.  It has been adapted and developed by Bruce Leavitt, a mining hydrologist and professor of mining engineering at West Virginia University, to provide enhanced aeration of polluted mine water, which speeds the cleanup process.

Use of trompe technology is especially applicable to the hundreds of mine discharges flowing out of the Pittsburgh coal seam in Western Pennsylvania, said Mr. Leavitt, during a walking tour of a trompe-enhanced passive treatment system on the North Fork of Montour Run in Findlay, 2 miles south of the Pittsburgh International Airport.

“Trompe can reduce the size and cost of passive treatment systems for mine drainage,” he said, “And it can take a treatment system that’s not working, or not working well, and clean the water better.”

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/state/16th-century-method-may-ease-mine-drainage-692917/#ixzz2X9Sy6uym

Filmmaker Turns Lens On Pennsylvania Coal In Documentary

A shortage of anthracite coal may have landed Kelly Brown her first movie role.

Brown, assistant manager at coal seller F.M. Brown’s Sons Inc., 717 Lancaster Ave., went on camera last month when documentary filmmaker Alexis Manya Spraic came to town.

Spraic, whose credits include a 2010 Sundance Film Festival selection, is traveling the world to make a film on the future of global energy. Titled “POWER,” it is intended to portray the deeply personal nature of the world’s ultracomplex energy problem.

Read more: http://businessweekly.readingeagle.com/?p=2463