Iron Ore from Cerre Bolivar (1954)

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] along Venezuela's Caribbean Seaboard runs a spur of the Andes this is the view enjoyed by most visitors from North America as they approach the land of Simone believer the spirit of of bolver who liberated Northern South America from the Yoke of Spain a century ago is strong among Venezuela's 5 million people the progressiveness that he engendered is striking the evident in his birthplace karacus the capital city with a population of 700,000 this is a center of Commerce and culture it possesses a fine University beautiful Parks squares boulevards residential districts and some of the most modern apartment houses hotels and public buildings to be found anywhere south of the mountains lies a vast sparsely inhabited region known as the Guana Hinterland through this region flows the oronoko river which empties into the Atlantic when the Delta was ascended by Spanish Fortune seekers in the 16th century they found Indians living in Palm thatched Huts along its banks the Huts were perched on poles as protection against floods Inland lies a vast area of jungle and Savannah one of the largest of the many tributaries of the oronoko is the koni which flows northward from the interior about 50 Mi due south of the Oronoco and somewhat west of the koni stands a certain Hill 1 mile wide 4 and 1/2 mil long and 1,800 ft high in 1947 after 2 years of intensive investigation in Venezuela geologists of United States Steel Corporation discovered that this hill now known as cob believer was encrusted in Iron ore the geologists filed claims and set up a camp as a base of operation they got around in four-wheel drive trucks and jeeps and both the men and their vehicles were put to some severe endurance tests the exploration survey which resulted in the discovery of Sero Bolivar and adjacent iron or deposits was conducted under the direction of Mac C Lake Consulting geologist and Mining engineer and FH Kad was the engineer who personally led the discovery group M Lake was destined in January 1950 to be the first president of oronoko Mining Company a US steel subsidiary formed to develop the deposits supplies were brought up by every available means including tractors and Burrows a churn drill was set up to Plum The Ore body wagon drills pressed against a sheer surface to begin an exploratory tunnel by now the facts were known serob believer was capped with a thick deposit of highgrade iron ore it contained more than 400 million tons averaging about 58% iron plans were made for production and shipment at an initial annual rate once full production was achieved of 5 million gross tons with provision for expansion to 10 or more million tons it was one thing to locate this ore body it was quite another thing to develop it oronoko mining company proceeded to solve a major problem of logistics first to bring in supplies and equipment and then to get out the ore and carry it to Mark camps had to be set up a road and trackage had to be pushed across grassland and jungle between the hill and the oronoko where crushing and handling equipment an integrated part of the mining operation and Port facilities would be needed while a channel would have to be dredged for or carrying vessels one spring day in 1952 a bulldozer crashed through the Thick Growth at the Confluence of the keron and oronoko clearing a site at the future port for a construction Camp thus started a long range construction program one of the most ambitious ever undertaken by private capital in a far country construction Crews lived in house boats tied up to the Shore supplemented by tents on High Ground nearby a new community was in the making Puerto oraz it was to be named after the first Spanish explorer who sailed up the oronoko in 1531 in May 1952 a strange craft appeared on the oronoko being towed Upstream it was the largest steel structure ever built in the form of a barge and it came from us Steel's Consolidated Western steel division yard at Orange Texas 2500 M away it was 82 ft wide 376 ft long 15 ft deep and weighed 2,2 50 tons it was the first of three identical barges that were to be fixed end to end to form a revolutionary type of dock for the handling of cargo and the loading of ore at Puerto or doz B doers and scrapers pushed and carried great quantities of fill for a Shore approach when the barge was maneuvered into its final position a remarkable operation ensued on the deck were carried 26 100 ft lengths of steel pipe 6 ft in diameter these were to serve as queson or piles on which the barge would eventually stand one at a time the queson were hoisted to a vertical position by a 100 ton capacity crawler crane then they were dropped through Wells on each side of the barge in two rows of 13 until all stood on on the River Bottom The Next Step was to raise the barge to Pier height which had to be above flood stage an elevation here of about 40 ft above low water the hoisting was done by a combination of ingenious air jacks fitting over the circumference of each queson and attached to the deck the air jacks climbed the queson much as a boy might shinny up a tree with all the Jacks operating in unison every time their upper halves were raised 6 in the whole structure went along with them when the barge reached its ultimate height the Big Crane swung into action with a steam Hammer weighing 40 tons one at a time the Jacks were released while The Quon were driven home to bedrock after that the projecting tops of the queson were trimmed to deck level as the season Advanced the two remaining barges in succession were brought from the Gulf Coast to Puerto oraz They Carried on Deck not only their 26 kons a piece but also a great deal of heavy Freight when all three barges were fitted into position they became a permanent heavyduty allpurpose dock 1128 ft in length this unique dock saved months that would have been expended for a conventional one of comparable size and strength the initial Freight for Pioneer construction had been lighter ashore but only 11 days after the arrival of the first of the quesan barges that formed a dock a supply ship was able to come alongside to unload from that time on all manner of freight no matter how heavy or bulky could be unloaded promptly before the end of the project about 300,000 tons of material and Equipment would have crossed this dock not only were pieces of heavy construction equipment coming ashore along with thousands of other items immediately needed but also Rolling Stock for the mine transportation system Southward along the route to the serob Boliver area roaded was rapidly prepared the highway which would generally parallel the rail line had first priority for the moving of construction supplies truck convoys carried caros of all shapes and sizes [Music] here and there deep Cuts had to be made in the rolling Savannah to maintain the proper gradient for the trackage as part of the program for the ore Gathering system the contractors had to erect 13 major Bridges across tributaries of the koni they also had a couple of underpasses to put in and several thousand drainage structures as operations extended ever farther along the Route outposts called fly camps were set up at intervals for the accommodation of equipment operators surveyors and their helpers house trailers were adapted as mess Halls as well as sleeping quarters and thanks to modern refrigeration and kitchen facilities the food served was always varied and wholesome parties of surveyors pressed on through Savannah and jungle with a special group wielding machetes to clear away undergrowth for a view of the line line ahead they toiled up the slopes of Sero Bol surveying right of way for the tracks that would be winding to the crest construction Crews gained a foothold around the top of the hill bulldozers swept the loosened material down the slopes and the track grade took shape before the end of 1952 all remaining gaps in the supply line were filled in the ribbon of RightWay winding around the hill was now connected with a new highway which ran northeastward 90 Mi to the Oronoco in February 1953 Benjamin F Fairless chairman of the board of us steel inspected Sero believer he was accompanied by a group that included MW Reed Executive Vice President of us steel and EM Vorhees chairman of the finance committee it was a happy occasion for mck Lake when he led these men into an exploratory tunnel to see for themselves what lay beneath the surface of the [Music] Hill through the months that followed Drillers patterned the hillside with holes into which charges of dynamite were loaded [Music] power shovels with six-yard buckets cleaned out the Blasted ore to make new access [Music] benches current would be needed for a new electric shovel for maintenance shops and other installations on the hill and to carry that current poles were marching up the slopes wire stringers followed the pole Setters in the valley near the base of the Hill a large new building contained two diesel generators which would Supply power to cob and also to the nearby Town site of CAD PR here was a miniature modern city whose creation was part of the Orono project with row after row of houses for the Mine Workers and their families the oronoko river one of the world's great waterways was to be conditioned for direct northward shipment of iron ore this necessitated the dredging of a total of 32 Mi of the 172 M course from Puerto ordaz to deep water at the Gulf of paria while shorter than the Mississippi the oronoko brings down about the same volume of water reaching a flood peak in August heavily charged with sediment a long range program of Channel Improvement was started in March 1952 hydraulic Bridges dropped their cutter heads to the river bottom and sucked up sand and silt and pumped it to the shore through large diameter pipelines floating on pontoons altogether some 33 million cubic yards were disposed of in 19 months of operation opening up an Oceano Ship Channel 250 to 400 ft wide at low water astonishing changes had taken place along the Puerto ordaz Waterfront by the fall of 1953 in the course of just a few months a combination of complex steel structures had risen against the sky these were the or handling facilities which were now almost ready for operation [Music] to furnish electricity for the or handling machinery and all other industrial and domestic needs of the new community of Puerto oraz a Powerhouse had been erected on the nearby Bank of the koni river another vital installation was the permanent water system which went on stream in mid November water was pumped from the oronoko river to a modern plant the volume treated was a million gallons per day which with a few modifications could be stepped up to 2 million Puerto ordaz had lost much of the rawness of a construction Camp many of the permanent houses were already built furnished and occupied eventually Puerto ordaz like CAD PR at the mine would become a full-fledged little city with Recreation buildings Bachelor and family quarters church school Hospital cafeteria commissary and laundry indeed the laundry was already in business it was a wonderful asset in a climate where clothing quickly wilts in [Music] soils still carrying on in temporary quarters was the Puerto ordaz school but its staff and the number of its pupils had grown with the coming of more and more resident families in the Puerto ordaz yards complete and upto-date shops were being built here all major Mining and operating equipment including Rolling Stock would be kept in condition all this time the or gathering system between perto ordaz and Sero bver was nearing completion of great importance was a rock quarry 28 Mi south of the oronoko here Crushers produced aggregate for concrete and ballast for grades on the Holly system from a pit beneath a stockpile of ballast a belt brought up carload after carload through a tunnel to a loading ramp the road bed was finished but ballast cars continued their work hauling crushed rock for the final grading of the track altogether some 425,000 cubic yards of rock of all sizes had been produced and sent out from the Quarry after the spreading of the last ballast the shoulder of the road bed was evened off by a special [Music] plow just behind a pair of power Jacks lifted the track to its final position an electric multi- tamper followed the power Jacks its Steel fingers probing into the ballast and and compacting it under the guidance of an instrument man the rails were moved into precise alignment the rail system was now virtually finished except for sightings on the hill itself where the roaded wound to the crest of cob believer it was found economical to use local iron ore ballast rather than ordinary Rock among the visit visitors who observed progress at cob believer was Clifford Hood us Steels president who arrived in mid November [Music] 1953 guiding the hood party was Francis Thomas oro's new president to all visitors it was an unforgettable experience to stand on the slopes of cob believer with some of the men in immediate charge of devel ment and examine samples of ore particularly on the eve of production on the 27th of November 1953 power shovels on the hillside worked with special intensity they were loading dump trucks in quick succession the trucks roll to a temporary platform alongside the tracks here were standing the first or cars to have been put ashore at querto oraz only a few days before they had since been hauled to S believer and were now receiving their initial Consignment of ore a 60c car train load was being made up for an experimental inaugural run from Sero believer to Puerto oraz with some 4,000 tons of ore it was on a Sunday when track work was at a minimum that the or train began its descent from the hill the train was now on the steepest grade on the entire line 3.1% three diesel electric locomotives of 1600 horsepower a piece pulled the 60c car train when mining operations were in full swing there would be as many as 120 cars at one time smoothly the train reached the fort of the Hill from here on there would be no adverse grade in excess of 2/10 of 1% except for a few short stretches which the train could overcome by its own momentum and no downgrade of more than 1% as the first or train neared the end of the line another milestone in the history of the oronoko project was passed soon The Ore brought by that train would be crushed stockpiled and poured into ships which would carry it to blast furnaces in the United States loaded cars were shunted to the base of a ramp and from there they were fed into a massive steel [Music] frame one after another at a rate up to 67 per hour their loads were dumped into a primary Crush [Music] as soon as each car was emptied its place was taken by another [Music] 80 tons or more at a time were dropped into the M of the giant Crush here began an extraordinary procession out of a t from the primary Crusher pit moved the ore on a 5T wide belt and upward to a secondary Crusher which reduced all chunks from a maximum of 9 in in diameter to 5 in or less the belt system at a speed of 600 ft per minute swept the or aoft to the bridge a huge movable structure mounted on Rails with a span of 400 ft The Ore cascaded onto a storage pile that could grow to 700,000 tons under concrete slabs at the base of the pile were two parallel tunnels in each of which were two traveling plow feeders huge bladed arms rotating horizontally scraped The Ore from a shelf onto a collecting belt a river of ore flowed toward its destination it passed through a plant which automatically weighed and sampled it then it was shifted to a transfer house where the belts changed Direction and ran it out onto the dock in the transfer house an operator at a central panel could control every phase of the entire operation with constant two-way communication all the way from the car dumper to the dock Side by means of loader moving on Rails along the dock from one hole to another or could be fed into ships at a rate up to 6,000 tons per hour but this might one day be increased with the installation of additional equipment to as much as 12,000 tons January 9th 1954 was a Gaya day for the people of querto orad a day that began at the local airport when reporters photographers and distinguished visitors from karacas arrived in special places most distinguished of all the visitors was Colonel Marcos Perez Kim president of Venezuela who came to inaugurate the operations of oronoko mining company and dispatch the first cargo of ore the president his party and all the guests drove in official and private cars from the airport to the dock a decorated and canopied flat car served as a speaker platform and a crowd of V swans and North Americans gathered expectedly before the bishop of Guyana bestowed his Blessing Francis Thomas spoke on behalf of oronoko Mining Company Oro miny then president teres himz spoke the first shipment of iron or from C believer leaving this port is of great importance to Venezuela said the president as it marks the beginning of the technical development of this valuable wealth on a large scale Gentlemen of the oronoko mining company I am glad to formulate the most sincere wishes for the increasing prosperity of the firm that you represent and that its activities contribute to the progress and the strengthening of Venezuela president Perez kimz pressed a button that caused the ore handling Machinery to go into action for the pouring of the last few tons to complete the loading of the first ship to carry cver iron ore from Puerto or do it was a ship called the tosa that had the and she was bound for the east coast of the United States with 6,000 [Music] tons no sooner was the tusco away from the dock and heading down the oronoko then another ship maneuvered into position to receive the second Consignment of s believer iron or in Holiday mood over 3,000 guests converged on an especially prepared area ad joining the new administration building to enjoy a barbecue lunch this happy celebration marked the end of the construction period and the beginning of production only 2 years after the oronoko project had started 10 days later and 2,000 mil from querto oraz a proud ship steamed up the Delaware River as she approached Philadelphia she was escorted by a FAA of tugs and fireballs a delegation boarded the Tusa to bid welcome to her and her cap the hatches were open to display the cargo in the group where the mayor and the Venezuelan Ambassador the American ambassador to Venezuela the chairman of the port authority and US steel president Clifford Hood gifts were exchanged including a silver box of s believer or which Captain smon hatin presented to the city of Philadelphia on went the TSA 30 Mi farther Upstream to complete her Voyage her goal was a dock near morisville Pennsylvania the home of the new Fairless Works where iron ore from Far places was being smelted in processed on the morning of January 20th the dock was closed in by Mist that lent an aura of drama to the scene as diplomats officials of United States Steel reporters and photographers gathered to witness the unloading of the first Iron Ore from Saro believer it was Benjamin fer who gave the word to the operator of the boat unloader Frank Rosy are you ready yes sir proceed here come [Applause] this ceremonial sample of ore spilling into a box was the first fruit of years of exploration of planning and of labor but not on the part of us steel alone it was the result of a Cooperative effort in which the people and the government of Venezuela joined and it exemplified what real and enlightened International cooperation could do to advance the world welfare of mankind so it was that iron ore from a remote Hill in Venezuela found its way into the blast furnaces at the Fairless works but here its usefulness was only beginning soon it would be turned into Steel in many forms and commodities however it was on his first visit to Venezuela when he met president teres Himes that Benjamin feris spoke of another commodity far more precious than Iron and Steel that commodity is friendship and that above all else is what we seek the kind of friendship that grows from Mutual understanding mutual respect and mutual confidence [Music]