left utah's dredge alameda performing channel and port work for mt goldsworthy iron ore project at port hedland australia upper right development part of australia's snowy mountain scheme this project which has been described as one of the five future wonders of the world has a two-fold purpose to supply irrigation waier for he inland plains of the murray and murrumbidgee valleys and to produce electric power for the states of victoria and new south wales lower right island bend dam one of several elements in the snowy mountain scheme constructed by utah-sponsored joint venture as a fuel supplier from its coal and uranium reserves mented by the utilization of these and other deposits vill be aug until recently most of the coal reserves under the company's con trol were suitable only as fuel for steam-fired electric generating plants however in 1965 the company's re-entry into the coking coal market was marked by the signing of a letter of intent for one of the largest sales of metallurgical coal ever made to japanese interests this letter of intent culminated a long-range exploration program which began four years ago in queensland australia and has now resulted in a conditional contract which will become fully effective after the satisfactory testing of a bulk sample the contract provides for sales of 13>/4 million tons of coking coal from the blackwater area of queensland and revenues of 137 million over a ten year period production initially at the annual rate of one-half million tons starting in 1968 is scheduled to increase to ivi million tons by 1971 utah's capital investment for this new strip mining opera tion is expected to be approximately 18 million mineral development and geology in fiscal year 1965 exploration on the north american continent was directed to the search for deposits of copper molybdenum and other non-ferrous metals as well as uranium and coal in australia a large part of this activity was devoted to a development drilling program at the blackwater mine while exploration for new coking coal and tin deposits was continued the company also continues to investigate mining opportunities in other parts of the world where the investment climate is believed to be favorable construction the company's fiscal year 1965 got underway with 84,000,000 in construction backlog divided almost equally between domestic and overseas locations as the year progressed a greater portion of the new awards received was for overseas work and at year end utah's 141,000,000 backlog was approximately 75 overseas and 25 domestic this is the second largest year-end backlog in the com