31.   Japan invested in iron ore, pulp and paper and aluminum to secure raw materials for its industry.

32.   Its production of copper, aluminum, iron ore and coal climbed while most commodity prices were little changed.

33.   Luxembourg became a steel-producing country nearly a century ago because it had ample supplies of iron ore.

34.   Mini-mill companies, including Nucor, are devising ways to improve quality and increase output by adding a form of iron ore to their molten scrap.

35.   Mini-mills generally cost less to operate than larger mills, which process iron ore to make steel.

36.   No one one seems to worry too much about reserves of Canadian oil or iron ore, but water gets the blood pumping.

37.   Nucor, for example, has built a pilot plant in Trinidad to convert iron ore, which is iron oxide, into iron carbide.

38.   Nucor is not in the integrated steel industry, which makes iron ore into steel and wants government assistance.

39.   Other approaches to turning iron ore into steel involve using coal, which is usually less expensive than natural gas.

40.   Other mills are using more scrap substitutes such as direct reduced iron from iron ore, and pig iron from Brazil.