description of operations lejt aerial view of company's iron ore mine cedar city utah right mobile processing plant foreground for treating iron-bearing gravels which are fed to it by 8 cubic yard dragline rear waste material leaves the concentrator by conveyor and is deposited back in the trench from which it was dug this mobile concentrator is 78 feet long 40 feet high and moves on four double-track assemblies its capacity is from 10,000 to 12,000 tons of gravel daily mining utah's profits from its mining interests exceeded those of 1964 how ever the financial results only partially reflect the progress which was made during fiscal year 1965 contract backlogs excluding those of affiliated companies were increased by $ 1 7 1 million to over 500 million through increased coal and iron ore sales contracts and preparations are now underway to provide additional earnings from two new major sources and several expanded operations iron ore the company's iron ore mine near cedar city utah operates under a 12-year ore sales contract with the u s steel corporation the contract which was renewed in july 1963 requires that future ore shipments meet higher specifications than those of the natural ore at the iron springs deposit to meet these requirements the company expanded the capacity of its existing benefidation facilities and in the summer of 1964 designed and constructed a mobile dry magnetic concentrator to recover alluvial iron ore previously considered un economic this concentrator has now operated for more than one full year producing approximately one-third of the total output shipped from the cedar city operation during 1965 utah also mines iron ore for the colorado fuel and iron corporation under a five year contract renewed in september 1 964 this contract mining will continue to be a dependable but modest source of earnings through a 43 % interest in marcona mining company utah par ticipates in a large and expanding iron ore producing complex in the vicinity of san nicolas peru marcona has been mining iron ore since 1953 when it was formed by utah and cyprus mines corpora tion located near deep water port sites and having a downhill mine to-port haul year-round operating climate and favorable stripping ratios marcona is one of the world's lowest cost export iron ore pro ducers since its first year of operations marcona has generated profits in excess of 56 million and has paid dividends of 19 mil lion it has also made capital investments which presently stand at 78 million during utah's 1965 fiscal year shipments from this mine were in excess of 6 million tons and utah's 2,425,561 share