has served and can continue to serve its shareholders well. We did so with dedication to the concept that management is responsible for operating the assets entrusted into its care for the best long-range interests of the shareholders. To us this meant that the company had to be operated in a manner that caused the dividends to increase and the price of the shares to rise, for these are the only benefits that accrue directly to the shareholder of a going concern. We recognized that these objectives could only be accomplished if we improved both the size and the quality of our earnings and achieved a rate of growth well above the average. Experience had demonstrated that the investment community held in low esteem earnings from construction, and so we turned our efforts, gradually at first and then with increasing momentum, to the more promising fields. The performance was far from flawless, but the record testifies that we have had considerable success in meeting our objectives. In 20 years we have transformed what was essentially a construction company into what is primarily a mining company, but certainly in some ways an unusual mining company. Setting it apart from other mining companies are several distinguishing features. First, the minerals that it produces serve markets that have experienced an unusually rapid rate of growth and promise to continue to do so. The energy requirements for the generation of electricity in general double every 10 years, but the outlook for uranium and for steam coal in the West anticipates far faster growth than this. The international trade in iron ore and coking coal has grown far faster than the increase in world steel -8-