U.S. funding was cut off for coal-slurry projects.

The government-owned Synthetic Fuels Corp. withdrew an offer of federal subsidies to six proposed coal-slurry projects, concluding that business is moving on its own without government aid to adopt coal-water mixtures as a replacement for oil as an industrial boiler fuel. The six projects were to be built in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Illinois and Virginia. The agency postponed until next month a decision on whether to also withdraw an offer of federal aid to electric utilities looking at coal-water mixtures as a boiler fuel.