ready to check for uranium ore exposed by removal of overburden at lucky me uit of advanced design shir basin wyoming yellow cake filtering lucky me mill grinding mill shirley b of which they will make common use is estimated at approximately 212.2 million utah development company's 85 share will amount to approximately 180.4 million this is the largest project investment ever to have been committed by utah or any of its subsidiaries utah development company will manage and operate the goonyella and peak downs mines as well as its 100 owned blackwater mine all contracts entered into for the sale of coking coal contain provisions for price adjustment to cover cost escalation under the provisions of its lease from the queensland government utah development company has the right to mine and export up to 100 million tons of coking coal from its blackwater operation a separate agreement entitles utah development company and mitsubishi as co-owners to mine and export from their queensland mines a total of 150 million tons plus an additional 150 million tons providing the second 150 million tons does not exceed 30 of the recoverable reserves in the area con tinuing investigations indicate that the reserve requirements will be satisfied and that all tonnages contemplated by the agreement can be exported uranium profits from our lucky me uranium mine and mill which operated at capacity during the year were significantly higher than in 1969 the increase was almost entirely due to a larger volume of ship ments partly taken from inventory stockpiles accumulated in earlier years price was not a factor in the increase the average price per pound of usos sold in 1970 was very close to the level of the prior year being held down by the relatively low price fixed by the terms of 10 our contract with the united states for deliveries to the atomic energy com mission as of the end of the fiscal year only 168,000 pounds remained to be delivered to the aec by december 31 1970 to fulfil final contract requirements and an improvement in average selling price should be realized beginning in 1971 an important addition in our current expansion is a new uranium mill located in the shirley basin area of wyoming adjacent to a uranium mine which has been converted from solution mining methods to an open pit operation we anticipate that it will be completed and ready to commence operations early in 1971 involving a capital cost of approximately 20 million this will be the second expansion project to come on stream since the program was inaugurated in 1968 enlargement of the navajo mine having been the first at its full rated output of 2.3 million pounds of u3o ntuiually the shirley basin mill will effec tively double our production of uranium oxide combined shipments from the lucky me and shirley basin mills will exceed a rate of 4 million pounds yearly by early 1971 under firm contracts and letters of intent virtually the entire output of these two installations for the five years beginning november 1 1970 amounting to 21.6 million pounds of u^o has already been sold or committed in ad \ nnce for delivery during the period at the end of our fiscal year october n the total backlog of sales of uranium oxide for future deliveries including sales under firm contracts and commitments under letters of intent amounted to 24,332,000 pounds of which 24,164,000 pounds had been sold or committed to private industry for power generation subsequent to the end of the year all