Under the conditions of basic open hearth smelting at Anshan steel works which employ scrap-ore-liquid iron charge, a statistical analysis of the production data shows that within the limit investigated the manganese content of the molten bath has no appreciable influence upon the oxygen and sulphur content of the steel. Provided that the final chemical analysis of the steel was the same, no difference in mechanical properties was observed between the products derived from the higher (>0.2% Mn) and the lower(<0.1% Mn) manganese specifications during smelting. It is concluded that for the two steels (rail steel and a low-carbon steel for seamless tube) investigated at least, there is no necessity for adhering to the specification of manganese content above a certain level(>0.15-0.2% Mn) during smelting.On the contrary, with a view to maintaining a higher manganese-containing bath, it was usually found necessary to add iron-manganese or manganese ore at the end of melting down; in doing so, the rate of carbon-removal was to a certain extent retarded, thus lengthening the period of smelting and decreasing the rate of production.The use of low manganese-containing pig-iron for the smelting of certain qualitysteels is not only feasible but also advisable from the economic point of view, provided, of course, that the sulphur content of such pig-iron can be made low to meet the necessary requirement. A review of the iron production data in certain blast furnaces at Anshan shows that this is possible, although the best conditions for producing low manganese and low sulphur pig-iron in blast furnaces deserve further a more detailed investigation.