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Show SHOULD Ell m i ! The decision of the government to fix j the price of copper at 23" cents assures j substantial earnings to the Anaconda i Copper company. Earnings for the current cur-rent year are uncertain because of tht J i strike and the higher cost of producing j ! copper to a much higher level than the figure for 191"), says a financial writer in ; the Boston Financial News.. It is safe to 1 say that Anaconda's costs this year will be 5 cents higher than last year, but j just what it costs tho company to pro- ' duce is impossible to say, as the income and mining accounts are too general to j arrive at a specific cost of copper per i pound. However, by taking the totaJ profit j from all sources and the total production j of copper of the company's mines and the j Great Falls smelter, a definite profit per pound of copper can be arrived at. Tills method credits all profit from outside sources toward marking down the costs. As the Anaconda and the Great Falls I smelter produced a total of 332,893,273 ' pounds of copper last year and made a j net profit from all sources of $"0, $28,372, the total profit per pound was lb.Zl cents. As the average price of copper last year was S. 46 cents, it would be safe to say that the Anaconda received at least 25 cents a pound for Its entire output. In j j ; making this estimate the fact that the H company sold a very large part of its out- 'put for delivery during the first six j months of 1916 at 2) cents is borne in J mind. Figured on this basis, the Ana- K conda's costs in 1916 were 9.63 cents per pound. In view of the fact that raw materials, wages, rates, etc., are somewhat hlgner this year than last, and that the mine was closed for two weeks and hampered In operation for two additional months, it would seem not far wrong to estimate that the costs this vear will be at least S 5 cents higher than in 191 6. This would I give the company a cost of approximate- fl ly 15 cents per "pound. The price received for copper this year will average as high I as last, or 25 cents, which would mean I a profit for Anaconda of 10 cents per I pound. 1 But the output will be considerably re- j duced. From the production already re- j ported for June, July and August, while the company's operations were curtailed, the decrease In production as compared with the corresponding months of last year amounts to 40,000,000. and the remaining re-maining three months to be reported for should show a further curtailment of 30.-nflO.OflO 30.-nflO.OflO pounds, making a total falling off in production of 70.000,000 pounds. This would mean a total production for 1917. from all sources, of 261,800.000 pounds. On a 10-cent 'profit this means a total surplus available for the 2,S31,io0 shares of S26.SOO.000, equal to $11.25 a share, as against iust under ?2 for 1916. This is a big drop from what the indications were at the beginning of the current year, when ;he outlook was that the current vear would close with earnings of approximately ap-proximately $30 per share. |