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Show into iron ore, for in 1946 we had opened up a mine at Cedar City, Utah and this mine is still operating today, selling virtually all of its output of around 600,000 tons yearly to U. S. Steel under a contract running until 1975. We were also performing contract mining and stripping for C. F. & I. Steel Corporation, as we are today, under a contract running until 1969. We also were operating a small mine in British Columbia which has since been mined out. However, the Peruvian prospect posed problems of a different magnitude. Then, as now, an investment in Peru was subject to "political and financial vagaries". Nor had anyone demonstrated that a merchant iron ore operation on the west coast of South America could prosper in competition with captive mines. The only customer that we could find was U. S. Steel, which frankly indicated that it would have no further interest in the ore once their Venezuelan mines were producing. In the face of these doubts, we remained convinced that the international trade in iron ore was about to undergo a fundamental change, that the steel producing centers of the world were no longer going to be able to obtain their ore nearby but were going to have to import this ore from great distances, and that this could be made possible by improved efficiencies in transportation. So with Cyprus Mines as a partner, with a two-year contract for 4 million tons from U. S. Steel, and with an initial capital of $7 million cash, of which Utah provided $2 million, we plunged ahead. Utah's construction forces had the mine operating in four months, and in less than four years we had our money back and a 50% profit. But Marcona today bears little resemblance to the simple direct shipping ore -4- |