US Steel – The Pull Of The Land

“Venezuela’s Magnetic Mountain”, Harry Chapin Plummer, Popular Mechanics, July, 1949

January 29, 2020January 29, 2020 Richard Barnes

Prep time for this blog has had me looking through old journals and publications partly because I get a kick out of the more un-self-conscious, optimistic (exuberant?) mid-20th century reporting compared to today’s dour, blame-America-first, Chicken Little iterations.

Something else that impresses me upon reading this over 70 years after its publication, is how accurate it was in reflecting the plans being made in 1949. There were, of course, some changes to the plans, as there are in all good plans. However, these great American companies were pretty thorough in their operations.

Enjoy:

When the Conquistadores of old Spain explored the jungle country of eastern Venezuela four centuries ago, the native Indians told them tales of a strange mountain which attracted lightning. Later the Spaniards saw for themselves this magic mound which, when struck by a lightning bolt, game forth a spray of flashes. The Spaniards dubbed the mountain “El Florero” — the Flower Pot — because the lightning flashes looked like flowers growing from the peak.

Today that mound has been found to hold one of the world’s richest iron-ore deposits.

Credit for that discovery goes to an alert Venezuelan mining inspector, Eduardo Boccardo. In 1926 he determined to penetrate beyond the superstitions of the natives and to find out why the mountain was one of the spots most frequently struck by lightning on the South American continent. What he discovered was a fabulously rich lode of iron ore which, by magnetic attraction, drew lightning to the mountain. The Spaniards, intent upon their quest for gold and silver, had passed up a deposit so valuable that even now its riches can be only estimated.

Surveys of that part of the mountain granted to Boccardo show that about 35,000,000 tons of mineral rich in iron underlay his concession. Assays have proved that this ore actually is 55 to 68 percent iron. Absolutely pure iron ore is made up of 72 percent iron and 28 percent oxygen. The iron content of Minnesota’s famous Mesabi range is about 57 to 63 percent. On this basis, the Flower Pot represents one of the most important discoveries of the century in the field of metallurgy.

Naturally, it didn’t take industry long to jump into this whopping mountain of ore. Today the Iron Mines Company of Venezuela, organized as a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Company of the United States, already has a small army of employees in the jungles near the Orinoco. Their task is to form a modern mining industry in the heart of the forests. They are at work between El Pao, the ore site, and Palua, the loading point on the Orinoco.

The task of these workers is staggering. They must build the mines and the port, highway and railway — even their own homes in the wilderness. Already they have completed a highway more than 14 miles long which eventually will serve as the right-of-way for a standard-gauge railway, the vital artery from the mines to the river. This railroad will have a steep grade from sea level to the mines.

When the harbor and dock installations, the roads and railways finally are completed, the ore will move by truck and train from the mines to the ships on the Orinoco. It then will travel aboard a fleet of ore carriers, especially built for the purpose, to the blast furnaces at Baltimore, Md.

It is estimated that production will rise to 3,000,000 tons of ore annually from ore reserves that will last a quarter of a century.

Already rolling along the uncompleted rail line is a 1500-horsepower diesel locomotive. When the track is completed, the railroad will have four locomotives, 100 ore cars with a capacity of 70 tons each, eight boxcars, four tank cars and a crane.

Before the end of this year the ore will begin to flow from the mines atop the magnetic mountain. There crews especially trained for the job will perforate and excavate the rock and earth, which will be picked up by four gigantic electric shovels each capable of taking a huge bite out of the ground. The shovels will load the ore into trailer-trucks hauled by tractors. From there it will be taken to big ore crushers — one of them said to be the largest in the world. The fragments of crushed ore will be carried by an aerial cable arrangement to the waiting ore cars on the railway.

It is estimated that about 10,000 tons of the rich earth will be hauled down the mountainside every working day.

When the ore reaches the harbor, it will be dumped into a huge storage area. An ingenious series of chutes at the base of the area will drop each load into an underground conveyor installed in a tunnel. After passing through the earth, it will climb up a huge loading bridge which extends like a pointing finger over the waters of the Orinoco. The load will slide by toboggan into 4000-ton lighters. Tugs then will pick up six of the lighters form them into a train and haul them downriver to the Gulf of Paria. From there the new 24,000-ton ore carriers will take the ore by ocean to Baltimore.

This modern industrial system in the heart of the jungle is within the orbit of Ciudad Bolivar, the principal river port of the Orinoco and the administrative and financial center of the region watered by the river.

Almost due south of Ciudad Bolivar the United States Steel Corporation has been conducting explorations of another area that appears to have huge ore deposits. it seems likely that the same vein which crops out atop the magnetic mountain also appears in this new area [the author was correct: that ‘new area’ became known as Cerro Bolivar, one of the greatest ore finds ever].

Reports state that the mineral deposits found in this second area are of a high quality, satisfactory for smelting in open hearth furnaces.

These two ore strikes are the second great boon to Venezuelan national within the past half-century. The first was the discovery of petroleum around Lake Maracaibo. Huge investments in drilling and pumping equipment, pipe lines, railways, bridges, community settlements, hospitals, and schools have been made by the participating oil companies.

Venezuela has enacted a law which requires the oil companies, both foreign and national, to refine within the country a percentage of the crude oil that is recovered. The purpose, of course, is to have a supply of domestic oil. It is anticipated that similar legislation will apply to recoveries of iron ore, and that eventually there will be smelting operations within Venezuela [a major understatement, of course].

Such a development would place Venezuela in the forefront of South American nations which at the turn of the century were dependent upon agriculture — cattle, coffee, sugar, cacao, tobacco, and rubber growing.

Thus the magic mountain that attracts lightning may revolutionize the economy of a nation.

Ore Crusher (one of the largest, if not the largest at the time, in the world) in El Pao. Note the administrative (American) camp in the background.

Life in an American Camp

May 18, 2019May 18, 2019 Richard Barnes

In the initial euforia of concessions by the Venezuelan government to American oil and iron ore companies, was any thought given to where these companies’ employees, many of whom would come from countries other than Venezuela, would live?

As it turns out, President Marcos Pérez Jimenez had given it much thought and had requested such companies establish “open cities” wherever possible. Puerto Ordaz, the crown jewel of Ciudad Guayana, whose impetus was The US Steel Company, was one result of the open city policy.

El Pao, where I was born, was more of what most folks think of when they conjure up images of an “American Camp.”

Jimenez understood that not all camps could be open cities. El Pao was deep in the Venezuelan jungle, relatively shut off from potential commercial centers, such as a major river, highway, airport, railway, etc.

On the other hand, the future Puerto Ordaz was situated at the confluence of two major rivers, one of which is the mighty Orinoco, the third or fourth largest in the world, measured by average discharge, meaning the river’s flow rate. I had to look this up and, from a layman’s perspective, this is probably the best illustration: “The volume of an Olympic-size swimming pool is 2,500 cubic meters. So the flow rate at the mouth of the Amazon [the world’s largest] is sufficient to fill more than 83 such pools each second.”

The flow rate at the mouth of the Congo and the Orinoco (second and third largest rivers) would each fill 16 such pools per second.

By the way, of the 10 largest rivers in the world, 5 are in South America.

As for El Pao, this area was explored by the Spanish 5 centuries ago. The Indians told them about a mountain which, when struck by lightning, would give off bright flashes. The Spanish investigated for themselves and confirmed the tales. They named the mountain, El Florero, meaning, Flower Pot, since the flashes looked like flowers on the mountain peak.

Actually, the area was rich in orchids and also an abundance of “purguo”, a tree which yielded very high quality rubber. In fact, the era in which the ore was discovered, was known as “la fiebre del balatá” (the balatá fever). Balatá refers to a natural gum of high quality found in the purguo. Mr. Aturo Vera, whom, years later, my father would often contract to drive us to fishing spots on the Caroní River, explored that area with his own father in the 1920’s. On one such journey, father and son espied a splendid ore specimen and took it with them to their home near the Caroní.

Word spread quickly and a miner, Simón Piñero, accompanied by his boss, entrepreneur Eduardo Boccardo, also explored and contracted an engineer, Frank Paglucci, to stake a claim. Mr. Vera, seeing all the excitement, also staked his claim, and rightfully so.

The ore was analyzed by American laboratories, found to be of extraordinary quality, and the Bethlehem Steel Company assigned their geologist, Earl H. Nixon, to the site.

On June 3, 1944 (3 days before D Day) , The New York Times reported, “The Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s big Venezuelan iron ore development, first disclosed as a prospect a few weeks ago, is now under way. Twenty American engineers and technicians are in charge, with some 600 native Venezuelans, skilled and unskilled, at work on the big project.” This project represented capital investments of $50 million ($1 billion in today’s money) and more in Puerto de Hierro (Iron Port), their deep sea port on the Atlantic.

By July, 1950, the first train load of ore was transported from El Pao to Palúa, the company’s river port on the Orinoco for transshipment to Puerto de Hierro. And in 1951, the seaport yielded its first shipment to the United States. The March 23 New York Times headline read: “First Cargo of Venezuela Iron Ore Arrives for Bethlehem Steel Plant; Sparrows Point Pier in Maryland Is Scene of Significant Ceremony Marking Start of 3,000,000-Ton-a-Year Shipments.” The article’s lead sentence read, “Vessels laden with iron ore have docked here for decades, but special significance attached to the arrival of an ore boat this morning.”

We’ll speak more of life in an American camp in future posts. For now, I’ll end this post by quoting some recent comments by folks who, when children, lived in Puerto de Hierro. This will give an idea of life in an American camp in Venezuela and also the pull of the land.

“That is the place of enchantment and he who has lived or even visited it will remember it for all of life. And I had the fortune of having been born there. Those good years of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s…. The best …?”

“My! All those wonderful people who worked there are beautiful I tell you! I salute that wonderful and dear place and people!”

“The best town and the most beautiful place in Venezuela; the only beach with a diving board in the ocean. I developed my life there along with my parents and siblings. Eternal memories and the best times of my childhood and my youth. My best friends of my life were from there.”

“My beautiful town. I can never forget you, although all is different now.”

“What wonderful memories of my childhood, of my parents, of my siblings, of my neighbors who once lived and those who still live. I embrace you all!”

“My beautiful town. Now, it is not even the shadow of what it once was. How much sadness it brings me to see the ruin that it is now!”

“My town! I was born there in 1961. How I long to go and run there again. My adored land. Venezuela, how much sadness you bring me now! My dear Lord!”

“I could not have asked for a better childhood.”

Neither could I.

Puerto de Hierro on the Atlantic coast, in the state of Sucre. The Bethlehem Steel ceded this to the Venezuelan government and it is now a Venezuelan navy base.

The loading bridge over the Orinoco in the company port of Palúa. My father used to dive off that into the river. Folks called him Tarzan.

El Pao under construction in the 1940’s. Men carved a modern road and railroad out of this jungle.

Above is a 1940’s map. You’ll not see Puerto Ordaz thereon. It would grow across the Caroní from San Félix, at the spot between the Caroní and the Orinoco (the Caroní is that river which runs into the Orinoco at San Félix). El Pao is the spot denoted as “Iron Mining Area”.

The confluence of the Caroní and the Orinoco rivers. Yes, at this point, the Orinoco is carrying much soil as it continues its journey to the Atlantic. It clears up again miles downriver. Puerto Ordaz grew on the right. Notice the ore ships on the right. Before the bridges were built, we’d cross by ferry.

As the Caroní approaches the Orinoco the change in topography yields several series of rapids and falls. Above are the Cachamay Falls. An Intercontinental hotel was built here in the 1970’s.

Ciudad Guayana. Foreground is San Felix (Old Town); background, across the Caroní, is Puerto Ordaz (New Town).

Arturo Vera, second from right, accompanies Bethlehem Steel engineers arriving in 1934, in Ciudad Bolivar, the closest major city. Photo source: El Pao Yacimiento Pionero.

Arturo Vera. Died in 1990, age 88. I vividly remember him. As a child, I used to think he was a great driver as he’d drive us over seemingly impassable paths to places I could never find again, even if my life depended on it. My father would often remind me that Mr. Vera owned part of the area which became El Pao. He was an unassuming and kindly man. And a great driver!

Santiago Smith: The camp had many men like him: unusual backgrounds, hard workers, colorful, sometimes mysterious. I was privileged to know them in my childhood. Mr. Smith was born of English parents in the gold mining area. In the late 40’s that area began to be shut down and he and some companions had to look elsewhere for work. They came to El Pao. He worked and lived there until his death in 2010. He was close to a century by most estimates. Photo Source: El Pao Yacimiento Pionero.

Mining

April 12, 2019April 20, 2019 Richard Barnes

Any blog on Venezuela must include posts on mining. In the future, I hope to have a post or two from guests with more expertise on the more technical aspects of the mining industry in Venezuela and their complex engineering facets. Meanwhile, we can certainly post things of interest or of general introduction.

Depending on your sources, Venezuela was one of the world’s largest producers (some sources had it as the largest) of direct-reduced iron (iron ore which is reduced to a smaller form, usually pellets by means of a specially formulated gas). It was in the top ten of the world’s producers of iron ore, aluminum, and bauxite. And it still ranks as possessing one of the world’s largest known reserves of crude oil, second only to Saudi Arabia, although some say the United States has surpassed both.

It holds one of the world’s largest reserves of gold and was second only to South Africa in diamond production. Countless gems and precious stones have been mined there, especially in the interior state of Bolivar and the giant Territorio Amazonas.

The attentive reader will note the use of the past tense in the second and third paragraphs above. The past tense is used because extraction and production have suffered precipitous declines since the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. I would not be surprised by the discovery of vast new deposits and reserves, alongside the return of successful mining and production, once the investment climate improves. (Meanwhile, we should not be surprised by the intense interest focused on Venezuela by China and Russia.)

In 1956, Time Magazine had at least two issues on iron ore mining in Venezuela. The article in its November 19 issue began thusly:

“Inland from Venezuela’s Caribbean coast some 200 miles, the swift, black Caroni River plunges into the chocolate-colored Orinoco. Southward from this junction of two mighty streams lie jungles and sandy scrublands studded with low, reddish mountains. This poor-looking expanse is one of the world’s great storehouses of iron. West of the Caroni looms Cerro Bolivar, blanketed with 500 million tons of high-grade ore. Farther west lies another iron mountain, El Trueno, endowed with 150 million tons. On the other side of the Caroni, Bethlehem Steel Corp. gathers up 3,000,000 tons of ore a year from El Pao….”

Poetically and dramatically, the article captures the vastness of the country’s riches in iron ore alone. The country is “awash” with natural resources, even including coltan. We are told that Venezuela is one of only seven countries in the world that have known coltan reserves in sufficient quantities to export. It is a black mineral that is used in mobile (cell) phones and computer chips.

According to recent publications, metal production is at all-time lows; even oil has suffered catastrophically. Here is a recent headline from a technical publication which will suffice for all: “Venezuela’s Iron Ore Mines Operate At Less Than 10% Of Capacity“.

The iron mines of El Pao, where I was born, had massive structures such as a giant ore crusher which was loaded from trucks carrying about 30 tons of ore from the dynamite sites. The crusher ground the ore down to chunks of about 8 inches. Then its covered conveyer carried the reduced ore to a secondary crusher which crushed it further down to 2 or 3 inches. Finally, that ore was poured into 34-car trains which transported 4,500 tons of crushed ore 35 miles daily to the company port on the Orinoco River from whence it was shipped to a deeper water port on the Caribbean coast, transshipped to larger oceangoing vessels, and delivered to Sparrows Point, Maryland, the world’s largest steel mill at the time.

**Clearing through the jungles from the Orinoco to the camp site. Arduous work, which at times brought mishaps and frights**

**train loaded with ore headed to the company port, Palúa, on the Orinoco**

**Sparrows Point, Maryland. At the time, the largest steel mill in the world**

That accounts for a fraction of the investment required by one company to successfully extract and produce steel. To that, must be added roads, bridges, hundreds of houses for miners and their families, schools, churches, recreational facilities, commissaries, airports, and more. Multiply that by the dozens of American and European companies who came to Venezuela for iron ore, petroleum, and other minerals, and you begin to get an idea of the gargantuan investment made in the country in the first fifty or so years of the 20th century. For example, US Steel’s investment greatly surpassed Bethlehem Steel’s. And so did the oil companies’.

**Some of the home office staff bidding farewell to one of their number who was going on annual leave**

Circa 1958, my beloved aunt visited us from Miami, Florida. Although a busy homemaker, she was of that generation who would, nevertheless, find time to experience and appreciate the natural world that surrounds us. So, naturally, we would go on day excursions to different parts of Guayana. Once, in the interior, as we drove over a small stream she asked my father if he’d stop the car so that we could walk around a bit. We got out and made our way to that stream and my aunt promptly took her shoes off and waded in, carefully stepping on the rocks and smooth stones under the water.

“There are gems in this place,” she said.

I, regrettably, never learned why she thought that, although I do recall spirited conversations between my parents, my godmother, and my aunt about the possibilities. Then, all possibilities having been exhausted in conversation as we wandered around, we embarked and continued on our journey.

A few years later, my father brought a newspaper report noting that a gem mining concession had been granted in that spot, which became a profitable enterprise.

A country might be supremely rich in natural resources; it may have people, like my aunt, who can discern the riches under the surface. But if it discourages investment and healthy incentives, what can we say about all those natural resources other than, “Why cumbereth it the ground?”

Or, “Why bury your talent?”