Steam Boom

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"Our volume of business," says Harry J. Bauer, vice president of New York Steam Corp., "is in the hands of the Lord." He can prove his point statistically: in 1940, when the average temperature during the heating season was 42 degrees (v. a "normal" of 43.2), New York Steam made $504,000; in 1941, when the thermometer averaged a muggy 45.5, the company lost $340,000.

But last week—though New York City was still digging itself out of a blizzard—even fatalistic Harry Bauer would admit that he owed his booming business more to the war than to the Lord. For the East Coast fuel-oil crisis had sent customers scurrying to buy steam a la carte instead of trying to generate their own. This plays right into the hands of New York Steam, which already has its mains running through the heart of the city.

Last year 279 new customers (a 15% increase in accounts) hooked up to New York Steam's 52 miles of steam mains and many of them were whoppers like the Ritz-Carlton and Plaza Hotels and Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. They will boost the company's gross revenues by about $3,000,000 (30%) and lift its total steam sales to a brand-new high of 13 billion lb. Last month another 34 buildings gave up begging for fuel oil and took to steam. What all this new activity will do to New York Steam's 1943 net earnings is still a guess. But even through last September (before the fuel-oil shortage was anything more than an oft-repeated Government warning) its nine months' earnings stood at $90,000—against a $313,000 deficit for the first three quarters of 1941.

This year, with sustained high volume, earnings should be much better. Nonetheless New York Steam (98% owned by Consolidated Edison Co. of New York) is still only mildly optimistic about the boom. For one thing, they have signed up just about all the big new customers in the area they serve. Besides, once the war is over, the U.S. will again be flooded with oil. And, despite Harry Bauer's faith in the Lord, an act of man like a cut in oil prices can slash New York Steam's earnings just as fast as an act of God like a run of warm weather.