Word: ruhr
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Productivity in European coal mines has not kept pace with wages, and coal prices are high: U.S. coal, even with transportation costs tacked on, sells in Germany for $15 a ton v. $17 for local coal. In the Ruhr valley, which digs 50% of Common Market coal, 24 pits have been closed since 1958, and six more are shutting down this year; frequent processions of silent, protesting miners carrying banners attest to the human consequences. Ten years ago, the 225 million tons of coal that Britain mined each year represented 91% of all the energy it consumed; by last year...
...Rivals. As in the U.S., oil and natural gas are rapidly taking over as cheaper and more convenient fuels. Most of Europe's factories, trains and homes will soon hum, run and heat on oil, and a few steel mills right in the Ruhr valley are now fired by oil. In 1960, the Common Six consumed 87 million tons of oil, or 27% of all fuel used-while coal's share dropped to 54%. By 1970, oil imports will raise the total to 48%. The discovery of natural gas in Italy's Po valley, in France...
...howl went up in West Germany, Russia's No. 1 oil-pipe supplier (633,000 tons from 1959 through last October). Just three and a half months ago, three giant Ruhr firms-Mannesmann, Phoenix-Rheinrohr AG, and Hoesch-signed a contract for another 200,000 tons. Ruhr steelmen denounced Chancellor Konrad Adenauer as a NATO stooge for trying to enforce the new rules. Taken aback, Adenauer's Cabinet last week agreed to reconsider, turned the problem over to a special subcommittee for special study...
...decline in exports to the U.S. was more than offset by rising sales within the Market itself. Thus encouraged, nearly all Europe's automakers plan to expand. Ford is building a huge auto assembly plant in Belgium; General Motors' Opel is opening a new factory in the Ruhr; Alfa Romeo intends to hike its output from 300 to 400 autos a day by next year...
That deficit would have been even greater had German exporters not pared their prices to the bone. Ruhr steelmakers have managed to hold their export customers only by charging lower prices outside the Common Market than within it. In Hamburg, the slumping shipyards glumly accept orders at below-cost prices rather than close down altogether...