OCR Text |
Show 1943 Utah Metal Output --.. Governed by Manpower Available f , . f ' ' i tU 1 : " , if s ! i - a t ' i Si ' ,y x ' -x i v i 4 ri I A K V, H - a , vi rr -t ! 1 I' , . s v - , I - . x x N - xxV C x x -wi. ix At Typical of Utah's mine workers for which industry was hard pressed during past year. Production of gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc in Utah during 1943 was governed to a large extent by manpower available. Every pound of ore that could be mined for the war effort was produced by the .limited number of workers available availa-ble to the industry. Without referring to statistics, 1944 made a favorable showing jcompared with former years, with a slight reduction is in most metals with tha exception of copper. Production of copper was well maintained throughout the year due to the highly mechanized character of Utah's principal red metal producer, pro-ducer, Utah Copper company. The Bingham producer, which rose to new production heights when the war started, has maintained a high rate of production during the past two years. Besides being the nation's na-tion's largest copper mine, Utah Copper is also an important producer produ-cer of other metals. While the manpower shortage did fTect Utah Copper somewhat, it was not so noticeable as in the underground un-derground mines where a man normally produces a ton of ore per ahift. The so-called underground mines are principally lead, zinc producers with the ores carrying some gold and silver. Production at Silver King Coalition, Coali-tion, located in the Park City mining min-ing region, was handicapped by insufficient in-sufficient manpower to maintain a balanced operation. However, this producer contributed mightily to the lead-zinc needed for the war program. Park Utah Consolidated, located in the same district, was handicapped hy the same problem, but was able to produce a fairly steady flow of lead-zinc ores. Park Utah also effected tha reopening of its Utah unit, which had been closed down for a number of years. This required unwatering and repairing re-pairing workings below the Ontario drainage tunnel. In the Bingham district, the year saw the National Tunnel & Mines company join the ranks of the larger producers. While the company com-pany was unable to reach full scale production because of dearth of workers, the company nevertheless reached a production level in excess ex-cess of 600 tons per day. United States Smelting Refining and Mining Min-ing company and Combined Metals Reduction company produced up t6 the limit of their manpower. Chief Consolidated in the Tintic district was added to the list of larger producers with the reopening reopen-ing and unwatering of the old No. 1 mine below the 1900-foot level. Chief reached a production rate of 5000 tons of ore per month. Tintic Standard in the same district continued con-tinued steady production. Other Tintic producers included North Lily, Eureka Lilly and Eureka Bullion. Bul-lion. Mammoth, a gold producer, was inactive. Many of the small prospects which are intermittent shippers of ore from various parts of the state were inactive because of the manpower man-power situation and the desire of federal agencies to place all available availa-ble workers on production. During the year a plant for the treatment of 150 tons of tungsten ores and concentrates per day was completed and placed in operation by the United States Vanadium corporation. The plant was built by the Defense Plant corporation in the southeastern part of Salt Lake City. At Alta the U. S. Bureau of Mines launched a development program to sound out the bismuth producing possibilities at the Alta United property. A summary of mining operations for the year 1943 leads to the conclusion con-clusion that development work was necessarily placed secondary to production and that there must be a restoration of exploration soon in order to insure ores for future production. |