Show operation i on of butte super superior bior by P butte superior is attaining remarkable prominence today from the fact that it is practically the only mine that is earning increased amounts A short article telling how the war has affected this company appeared in these columns last week A few further words on the history and present operation of the company are of timely interest the butte superior copper company was organized in 1906 while its name indicates that it is a producer of copper this is not so as today it owns large zinc deposits he deposits posits and the amount of copper is infinitesimal although it also produces silver the com and it now has ore reserves in sight which it is estimated by the management are sufficient for six years operations at capacity this company did little for quite a long time but several years ago it was taken in hand by new interests which confined operations to the production of zinc in fact followers of copper will remember that this stock in 1910 went from a low point of 1912 to 51 when valuable reserves were discovered the company had a prosperous year in 1913 and treated tons of ore from which it produced pounds of zinc in concentrates the company az aw 1 ve rth 4 showing portion of butte superior mill and concentrate bins pany has an outstanding capital of shares par value of 10 per share the property of the company consisting of about acres lies in the northern part of the butte camp and there are two shafts sunk on the property one down 1600 and the other 1200 feet the company owns a mill of about 1000 tons daily capacity and covers a very high percentage of zinc value in its ore the recovery for 1913 averaging per cent the butte superior copper company on december 31 1913 had about tons of ore blocked out and ready for mining this ore averages 21 per cent zinc in united states investor showed a net profit for the year of 94 or per share on account of its good showing last year and because of the success it was having in the current year the management in june last inaugurated dividends at the rate of 3 per share per annum had the butte superior company been strictly a copper producer or almost any other kind of a company it would have been almost a foregone conclusion that the first dividend would have been its last until the european war had come to an end the butte superior copper company with spelter at less than 5 cents a pound was earning better than its 3 a share dividends the company has a small vitalization and has a large brodu production action cap and can cheref therefore ore show a very nice and sub profit on an advance of even only 0 half a cent a pound in the price of s sp for instance in the first quarter of 1914 this company treated tons of ore or from which it produced pounds of cinc in concentrates averaging der cent zinc it recovered per cent of the total zinc values in the ore and earned a net profit of or at the rate of about 5 per share annually results this year in the second quarter of this year production fell off a little as the company milled only tons of ore the average content of which was 1828 per cent while the zinc concentrates totaling pounds showed an assay of per cent the recovery value of per cent was not quite as large as that of the first quarter but it was considerably better than the average for 1913 and more even than the recovery in the second quarter of this same year in fact the results for the second quarter of 1914 showed a big improvement pro over the same period of 1913 when the company milled tons of ore from which it produced pounds of zinc in concentrates the average content was per cent but the assay of concentrates was only per cent or about 5 per cent less legs than the average since the second quarter of 1914 As a result of this in spite of the fact that the price of spelter was considerably lower than in the second quarter of 1913 the companas comp anys profit for the same period of 1914 was more than twice that of the corresponding quarter of 1913 moreover Afore ove during this quarter the company developed tons of ore as against the tons mined so that a gain in ore reserves was m made ade during this time the company turned the h half alf year in a very strong financial pos position with total cash on hand of over or almo almost st a full years dividends in the case of this company however there is still one fly BY in the ointment namely the fact that the butte superior is a large producer of silver the silver market was demoralized by breaking out of war and is still in uncertain shape at the same time the improvement pro in the zinc market was sul suf focient to presume that the management will feel justified in continuing the present dividend rates |