uranium utah's lucky me properties located in the gas hills district of wyoming constitute one of the world's most efficient open pit uranium mining opera tions the mill with processing capacity of about two million pounds of uranium oxide concentrate annually went on stream early in 1958 and since that time has shipped 14.6 million pounds of concentrate to the atomic energy commission and 1.8 million pounds to private customers in 1957 utah acquired an additional high grade uranium property in the shirley basin wyoming area this property an underground opera tion went into production in 1960 and shipped its ore to the lucky me mill for processing in 1963 , with the decrease in annual uranium require ments as a result of the stretchout agreement with the atomic energy commission underground mining operations at shirley basin were sus pended in favor of limited production using solution mining techniques during the past three years the demand for uranium to fuel nuclear power generating plants has grown immensely we believe there will be an active market and favorable prices for uranium oxide for a number of years in the future in order to assure that utah can fully avail itself of these opportunities we are proceeding with plans to develop the shirley basin property the shirley basin property holds sufficient reserves to support this expansion at shirley basin we have planned a mine and mill which will be able to produce uranium concentrate at an annual rate of approximately 2.25 million pounds when completed the shirley basin mine and mill will effectively more than double our capacity to produce u3o8 from the present lucky me output of 2 million pounds to a new rate of about 4.25 million pounds yearly we estimate the mining facilities and mill at shir ley basin will require a capital investment of approximately 20 million the terms of definitive contracts for the sale of shirley basin concentrates are now being ne gotiated we plan to start mill construction in 1969 and we believe this property will produce uranium concentrate in late 1970 or early 1971 icky me mine in wyoming i l equipped and expertly staffed laboratory for this purpose initiation of open pit mining at our shirley basin property in wyoming in early 1969 scrapers will begin stripping some 22 million cubic yards of overburden production is scheduled to commence in early 1971