OCR Text |
Show TUNNEL DRILLING WELL ON SCHEDULE Crews of the Utah Construction Company have completed drilling drill-ing a total of 10,900 feet on Ken-necott Ken-necott Copper's now 18,000 foot ore haulage tunnel at Bingham Canyon. The $12,000,000 project was started in November of 195G and ix,peeted to be completed 'by I960. The tunnel will connect ihe bottom of tihe deepening open-pit open-pit copper mme with the Copper Cop-per ton Assembly Yajds at the mouth of Bingham Canyon. The project is part of Kenme-cott's Kenme-cott's continuing effort to improve im-prove operations, effect better methods and thus remain strong in today's highly competitive copper market. Utah Copper Division officials reported tha't thiring February a , total of 1 ,205 feet were driven in 24 working days, or an average of more than 50 feet per day. They said similar such excellent progress has been made for the past several months. stant struggle in mine economics I where expenditures must ba made from earnings in order to i reduce costs at properties where l the ore grade is gradually declining. de-clining. i ' The three and one-half mile project will probably constitute one of the longest mine tunnels in the United States. At points, the concrete lined tunnel will be 1,800 feet below the top "lip" of the huge open-pit copper mine. When completed, the tunnel will be 18 feet wide and 24 feet hi&h and will accommodate a single standard gauge railroad track. Centralized traffic control will be necessary to coordinate! (movement of ore and waste trains in and out cf the tunnel from the .bottom of the pit. The mine is served 'by two other 'tunnels, progressively being be-ing shortened as the pit expands. They are the 6040-foot level tunnel, tun-nel, finished in 1945 and the 5840 foot level tunnel finished in 1953. 'Principal objective of the new tunnel is to reduce mining costs through elimination of the uphill haul by trains comin-T from the bottom of the deepening pit. The project is an example cf the con- |