Am I crazy?

At space age level everything can easily cost like 20 steel for something as simple as a water pump, 15 steel for a reservour, etc. And I'm running like 4 steel mills, each of them, fully manned take 1.10 minute to deliver 2 steel beams. So I'm making 8 steel per minute. Which means a little over 2 minutes for a reservoir or water pump or 1 minute for a defensive tower. Now the NPC ministers throw them down like crazy.

So my whole civilization is getting slowed down on this one resource because the requirements for anything and everything requires so much steel.

I keep having to get it through the black market but I feel the steel production craaaaaaaaaaaawls along and the ministers snipe my production away.

How to get steel faster?