tertiary crushers at piraa mining company's island copper concentrator construction vancouver island concrete form work keeps pace with plant detailed mine planning at island copper jjrinding mill for island copper being unloaded prevail in the charter market marcona's owned fleet operated by its subsidiary san juan carriers ltd now includes 10 vessels aggregating 890,000 deadweight tons nine of the ships are combination ore/oil carriers and the cargo capabilities of the tenth the 106,000 dwt ore carrier ms son juan exporter will be increased during 1971 as the ship is scheduled for expansion to 141,000 dwt and to be equipped to load and discharge slurry by the marconaflo system the long-term upward trend in the world-wide demand for iron ore partic ularly as pellets and concentrates and in other technologically sophisticated forms suggests that the mining proc essing sale and shipping of iron ore will continue to be an important factor in your company's profitability copper utah's interest in copper production during 1970 consisted of its 25 equity in pima mining company operator of an open pit copper mine and concentrator located near tucson arizona and having the capacity to process about 39,000 tons of ore per day further expansion to a daily capacity of 53,000 tons is under way and should be completed by the end of the calendar year 1971 cyprus mines corporation and union oil company own interests of 50 and 25 respectively in pima mining company the company's share of pima's earn ings after provision for distribution taxes was 4,907,000 18 higher than for the previous year favorable copper prices were primarily responsible for this marked improvement which occurred despite the fact that shipments were lower than in 1969 the 1969 volume of shipments with which current operations are compared was larger than normal however because it included sales of concentrates produced during 1968 but not shipped in that year when smelters were closed down due to prolonged strikes as of the year end copper prices had weakened substantially and this trend is expected to continue into the new year the outlook for 1971 has further un certainty because of scheduled negoti ations of new labor contracts and the question as to whether agreements can be reached without work stoppages early in the fiscal year 1972 utah expects to commence production and shipments of copper concentrates from its island copper mine now under development and construction at the northern end of vancouver island in british columbia canada the island copper mine and concentrator comprise one of the four entirely new mining projects in our current expansion program and represent a diversification in the minerals mined by utah for its own account the flotation plant or concen trator will have a capacity of 33,000 tons of ore daily the mine and concentrator will have an annual output capacity of approximately 230,000 tons of copper concentrate containing about 55,000 tons of copper metal and 1,800 tons of molyb denum concentrate existing smelting contracts with mitsui mining & smelting co and with mitsubishi shoji kaisha ltd and dowa mining company ltd over a period of 5 years beginning in 1971 call for deliveries of between 84 and 100 of the total output of concentrate depending on utah's option as to the quantity above 84 and the contract with mitsui which continues for an additional 5 years will require from 56 to 63 of total production also de pending on utah's option during the 1976 17