Production (pounds) 1973 142,117,000 1972 106,805,000 1971 33,317,000 1970 32,066,000 1969 33,671,000 Copper Shaped into tools and weapons, copper was one of the first metals used by man in his efforts to achieve better living standards. Today, due to electrical conductivity properties and high resistance to corrosion, copper and its alloys continue to perform an integral role in an increasingly industrialized world. Utah's Island Copper mine at the north end of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, mines and concentrates ore containing copper and important amounts of molybdenum, gold, silver and rhenium as by-product metals. Development of Island Copper began in 1969 and consists of an open-pit mine and a mill capable of processing 38,000 tons of ore per day. A deep-water dock adjacent to the mine and mill was designed to provide convenient product shipment facilities. Contracts were concluded in the same year with Japanese companies to sell the entire output of the project for the first five years of operations and approximately two-thirds of the production for the next five years. Pricing under the contracts is based on London Metal Exchange quotations. The first shipload of concentrates departed Island Copper in December 1971. Island Copper has the capability to produce annually concentrates containing 115 million pounds of copper metal. Shipments in 1973 reached 97 million pounds of copper contained in concentrates, up from 65 million pounds delivered in 1972. The gold content of the 1973 shipments was 44,000 ounces, establishing that metal as the most important by-product. Utah owns approximately 25 % of Cyprus Pima Mining Company, which since December 1956 has been engaged in open-pit mining and milling of copper deposits located some 25 miles south of Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A. The Pima operation has been expanded on several occasions with the latest expansion completed during 1972 increasing milling capacity to approximately 53,000 tons of ore daily with copper production of approximately 160 million pounds annually. Some 150,000 tons (136,000 metric tons) of ore and waste are removed each day from the pit at the Island Copper mine in British Columbia, Canada, using 15-cubic yard (11-cubic meter) shovels and 120-ton (109-metric ton) trucks. 14