APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110021-0
Technically, the standards of the iron and steel industry are far below those of Western countries, and even below those of some other Eastern European Communist countries. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria have constructed, or are constructing, integrated steel plants with large plant furnaces, basic oxygen steelmaking furnaces, plate mills, continuous hot strip mills, cold-rolling mills and finishing equipment. In contrast, East Germany has made no major additions to its iron and steelmaking capacity for more than a decade and remains committed to an inefficient complex of facilities constructed in the 1950's. The comparatively small Maxhuette plant is the only integrated plant. Plans for construction of a large integrated plant at Eisenhuettenstadt have been indefinitely postponed, if not abandoned. The only facilities in operation at Eisenhuettenstadt are six blast furnaces constructed in the early 1950's and a Soviet cold-rolling mill commissioned in 1968. The cold-rolling mill is supplied with hot-rolled steel imported from the U.S.S.R. The major producers of crude steel are the Brandenburg and Hennigsdorf plants, which must (uneconomically) use cold pig iron from Eisenhuettenstadt or from other sources for smelting and must send much of their steel elsewhere for further processing.
The bulk of investment in ferrous metallurgy since 1960 has been concentrated in the rolling and finishing sector of the industry. Some rolling equipment of domestic manufacture has been installed, but a larger part of the new equipment has been imported from the U.S.S.R. and Western Europe. Such imports have included rolling and drawing equipment for pipe, sheet, strip, and wire, and facilities for forging, heat treating, and surface conditioning. Tangible gains have been realized from this program for upgrading of steel products. The proportion of highly processed steel, that is, steel undergoing additional rolling or finishing operations beyond the hot-rolling stage, increased from 19% of total rolled steel in 1960 to 24% in 1965 and 34% in 1971.
b. Nonferrous metals
East Germany is generally deficient in nonferrous metals, except for uranium. The output of refined copper, from scrap as well as local ores, covers less than half of domestic requirements. Imports to make up the deficit are obtained principally from the U.S.S.R. A further increase in imports seems likely. Production from the low-grade ore deposits in the Sangerhausen basin has been declining and is now exceeded by the output from scrap. A further decline in output from the Sangerhausen ores is anticipated in the 1970's. All copper processing, from ore through finished product, is handled by the Wilhelm Pieck Mansfield Combine, with facilities located at Eisleben, Helbra, and Hettstedt.
Lead ore mining at deposits in the Freiberg area was discontinued in 1968 because of high costs, but approximately 30,000 tons of lead are recovered each year from scrap materials. A small amount of tin ore is mined in the Altenberg area, and a modest increase in output reportedly is planned. Production of primary aluminum is entirely dependent on imports of bauxite and alumina. Imported bauxite, from Hungary and Yugoslavia, is processed at a plant in Lauta. Alumina from this source meets about half the requirements of East German smelters, and imports from Hungary and West Germany cover the remaining requirements. Primary aluminum is produced at two plants located at Bitterfeld and Lauta. Output falls considerably short of domestic needs. Imports from the U.S.S.R., which exceeded 100,000 tons in 1971, make up most of the deficit. Most other metals are imported, although small amounts of metals are obtained as byproducts from domestic and imported ores, including bismuth, cadmium, silver, selenium, rhenium, and gallium. East Germany has the capability to process a wide range of metals to meet high purity standards for electronics and other exacting applications, among such metals are antimony, arsenic, indium, lead, gallium, silicon, and germanium.
Uranium ore mining started in East Germany in 1946 under a Soviet company called Wismut AG, which was converted into a joint Soviet-East German company in 1954. All operations are still supervised by the U.S.S.R. The firm employs approximately 80,000 people, and its headquarters are located in Karl-Marx-Stadt. Present estimated annual production is equal to 6,500 tons of uranium metal. Mining started in the Aue area near Karl-Marx-Stadt in underground mines, but production from these mines is declining due to supply depletion. The output of pitchblende, a high-grade ore ranging in average uranium content from 1% to 2%, is sent in an unprocessed state to the U.S.S.R. East Germany is now depending more on the lower grade sedimentary deposits of Koenigstein. Open pit and underground mining operations have been carried out near Gera in Thuringia since 1952. The average grade of this ore is 0.07% uranium, and over 12,000 tons of ore are mined daily. The ore is processed at a facility located at Seelingstaedt, which is the largest uranium processing plant in the world. Annual
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110021-0
