IX, A, 3 Dalburg and Pratt: Iron Ores of Bulacan 257 



steel plant appropriate in size to the market over a period of 

 time long enough to redeem the capital invested. Such a plant 

 would have to manufacture its pig iron into standard forms, 

 plates, rods, rails, etc., since the local market uses comparatively- 

 little pig iron or steel. 



The exportation of iron ore from the Philippines is prevented 

 at present by the collection of a wharfage tax of 2 pesos per 

 ton on exports of ore. Even if this tax were removed, it is ques- 

 tionable if the Bulacan ores could be exported advantageously 

 because of their situation so far from a seaport. 



Recent progress in the electric smelting of iron and steel has 

 been attended with the design of plants which, although complete 

 in themselves, are of limited capacity. At Domnarfvet, Sweden, 

 for instance, a commercial plant for electric iron smelting has 

 been erected ^^ which has only one furnace capable of reducing 

 about 11,000 tons of pig iron per year, and at Hagfors, Sweden, 

 is a similar plant with two furnaces which together will produce 

 about 18,600 tons of pig iron annually. Both of these plants, 

 it is said, are in successful operation; they are modeled after 

 an experimental plant which was built at Trollhattan, Sweden, 

 at a cost of less than 200,000 pesos and which demonstrated 

 conclusively the feasibility of commercial operation on this scale. 

 Electric furnaces for steel manufacture are designed in simi- 

 larly small units. The smaller iron furnaces require about 

 2,250 kilowatts of electricity, and another furnace to make steel 

 out of the pig iron produced would require an additional 500 

 kilowatts according to the estimates of the writers quoted above. 



Coking coal occurs only in limited quantity, so far as is 

 known, in the Philippines; in Bulacan no commercial coal has 

 been discovered. The forests in the iron-ore region, however, 

 appear to offer an abundant supply of charcoal, a reducing agent 

 which is peculiarly adapted to present practice in electric smelt- 

 ing; coke, as a matter of fact, has not been used successfully 

 in the Swedish type of furnace. 



The greatest obstacle in the way of development in Bulacan 

 is the isolation of the ores in a mountainous region. Trans- 

 portation difficulties are involved, no matter where the smelting 

 site is located. In this respect the exploitation of the Bu- 

 lacan ores presents severer problems than would attend the 

 utilization of other iron-ore resources in the Philippines, notably 



"'Lyon, Dorsey A., and Keeney, Robert M., Bull. U. S. Bur. Min. (1914), 

 67, 27. 



