CONFERENCE REPORT ELECTRIC ARC STEELMAKING: 1 FROM JUNE 7-9 an international conference on the electric arc furnace in steelmaking was held in Cannes. Organised primarily by the two French bodies Irsid (Institut de Recherches de la Sidrurgie Francaise) and St. Francaise de Metallurgie, under the aegis of the Chambre Syndicate de la Sidrurgie Fran-caise, it had assistance from many other industry bodies, including the EEC Commission, Union Internationale d'Electrothermie, AIME, Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia, CRM (late CNRM), Ilafa, ISI, ISIJ, Jernkontoret and VDEh. In Metal Bulletin we have already drawn various points from the conference; space forces us here to restrict our coverage to those economic, market and technical aspects which we feel most readers will find particularly interesting. The conference was opened by L. Coche, directeur gnral of Irsid, whose welcoming speech referred to the French government's interest in Irsid's work. He stressed the increasing rle of the electric arc as a bulk steelmaking process, partly as a result of technical development in many fields, including transformers, computers, hydraulics, and refractories. A major problem affecting the further development of the process was the lack of scrap. Prereduction was one answer to this problem. M. Coche foresaw the evolution of the electric arc whereby the operations of melting and refining would in future always be separated. In time, continuous processes would be with us. The conference had been called, he said, to sum up the progress made so far in the field, and chart likely future development. An opening speech by Jacques Ferry, president of the Chambre Syndicale, followed. He echoed the previous speaker's remarks about the uncertainty of scrap supplies a theme that was to be repeated throughout the progress of the meeting adding that the supply of electric power too was something of an unknown factor. There were other problems facing the world steel industry: the menace of rising costs, the pressure of innovation, the need for increased productivity, and the fight against pollution. The opening address of the conference was delivered by Prof. O. Masi, director of Italy's Centro Sperimen-tale Metallurgico. Prof. Masi started by making a comparison of the time it had taken, historically, for the various steelmaking processes to become established: at the start of the industrial revolution, the Bessemer converter had, remarkably, held sway for the No. 3 electric arc furnace at Kawasaki Steel Corp.'s Nishinomiya works, Japan. AUGUST, 1971 7