 With iron ore being shipped from Newfoundland and coal now being sourced in Cape Breton Island, the company was faced with high transportation costs, thus it was decided to construct a new integrated steel mill at Sydney Mines which opened in 1899.The steel mill and coal mines in Cape Breton, along with the iron ore mine in Newfoundland and the steel mill and forge in Trenton and the blast furnaces in Ferrona were all merged into a new entity in 1900 called the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company, which used the acronym SCOTIA.SCOTIA immediately sought economies of scale and reductions in unprofitable parts of the company.