marcona corporation this mining and shipping company operates through two wholly owned subsidiaries marcona min ing company and cia san juan s a and other minor affiliates utah has a 46 equity interest in marcona and owns 50 of the voting stock cyprus mines corpo ration owns an identical interest the company's share of earnings from marcona this year after distribution taxes totaled 8,004,000 which approximately equals last year's record earnings marcona mining company this wholly owned subsidiary of marcona corporation operates iron ore mines and ore handling and beneficiation facilities in peru opera tions commenced in 1953 and the mar cona mine is one of the largest iron ore mines in south america ore shipped in the past year totaled 9,589,000 tons an increase of 15 over the 8,346,000 tons shipped last year the backlog of contracted firm price mineral sales for delivery over the next 10 years is approximately 55.8 million tons repre senting sales backlog of 625 million the major portion of these contracted sales will be shipped to japanese buyers sale top : the san nicolas iron ore beneficiation plant located about 250 miles south of lima peru and owned by marcona mininq companyh is capable of processing about 9 million tons of iron ore annually to produce pellets and other beneficiated products bottom '• the beginning of the conveyor loading of iron ore concentrate into a 106,000 deadweight ton of substantial additional tonnages is pro vided for under extension provisions of current term sales agreements with prices to be negotiated at later dates an expansion program is in the plan ning stage which will increase normal an nual production capacity to 10.5 million tons pellet production would be in creased by 700,000 tons to a new annual capacity of 4 million tons concentrate ca pacity would also be increased this ex pansion would also include additional facilities for handling and shipment of concentrates in slurry form a process for shipping the product that could materially reduce the historical costs of transporting ore from mine to port and diminish the need for deep-water ports cia san juan s.a this company a pana manian corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of marcona corporation it markets marcona mining company's en tire production of iron ore except that sold to the santa corporation a peruvian gov ernment agency and in argentina and arranges transportation of the ore sales are made in u.s dollars on a de livered basis during 1969 about 10 of the total ore shipments from peru were to buyers in the united states 6 to europe 80 to japan and 4 to south america in addition to the sale of peru vian ore san juan markets the ore pro duced from the mount goldsworthy mine for each individual participant in the mount goldsworthy venture san juan carriers ltd a wholly owned subsidiary of cia san juan s.a this liberian corporation owns and charters vessels for the transportation of marcona and mount goldsworthy iron ore and other bulk commodities carriers owns seven ships having an aggregate deadweight tonnage of approx imately 498,000 it also operates 21 ves sels under long and short term charters six of the seven owned ships are combi nation ore-oil carriers two additional ore-oil vessels each of approximately 130,000 deadweight tons were added to the shipping fleet in no vember 1969 increasing the overall own ership to nine ships and the deadweight tonnage to 760,000 a third vessel of sim ilar design and tonnage will be delivered next year these three ships will operate under separate foreign flag corporations which are wholly owned subsidiaries of marcona corporation in 1969 transportation of iron ore and bulk commodities approximated 120.6 bil lions of ton-miles as compared to 115.2 billions of ton-miles in 1968 the employment of large ore-carrying vessels that are able to load at marcona's deep-water docks has been a major factor in permitting favorable competition in the world-wide ore markets the san nicolas beneficiation plant can produce over 3.3 million tons of iron ore pellets annually in addition to other beneficiated products this