therefore a program to construct regrind ball mills is now underway with attainment of design production levels of 33,000 tons of ore daily expected by the end of 1973 japanese smelters have contracted to buy all the copper concentrates produced during the first five years and 63 during the next five years at prices based on the london metal exchange quotations at the time of shipment deliveries in 1972 contained approximately 65 million pounds of copper and significant amounts of gold under a variety of sales arrangements 250 tons of molybdenum concentrates produced as a by-product of the island copper concentrator were sold during 1972 these concentrates contain the metal rhenium which has commercial uses particularly in the production of low-lead gasoline in some cases the molybdenum buyer has purchased the contained rhenium while in others this product is to be returned on a toll basis at which time utah is to seek sales opportunities the nearby town of port hardy has shown continued growth and prosperity as a result of the new mine-mill complex at island copper new housing schools roads sewerage treatment facilities and underground utilities have been built either by utah or the town of port hardy and the government of british columbia pima mining company has operated an open pit copper mine and concentrator 25 miles south of tucson arizona since 1956 expansion of pima's facilities was completed in january raising the capacity of that operation from 40,000 to 53,500 tons of ore per day this expansion will allow production of copper contained in concentrates to increase 25 to 160 million pounds per year after less than a full year of operating the new facilities ptma's sales for the year were 157 million pounds up from 125 million pounds in 1 971 . however lower copper prices offset the effect of increased shipments and utah's interest in the earnings of pima was relatively unchanged pima depends upon custom smelters owned and operated by others to convert its concentrates to metallic copper to the extent that these smelters might have to be modified to meet air pollution standards pima would be affected either through increased smelting charges or by a requirement to arrange alternative smelter capacity with a full awareness of this potential problem pima continues to study various means of assuring that its output will be readily and economically marketable over the life of the mine iron ore directly and through its ownership in marcona corporation utah holds iron ore interests in peru new zealand australia and the state of utah ship ments of iron ore and beneficiated iron ore products including pellets and pellet feed are sold to buyers representing the free-world steelmaking industry iron ore markets showed general weakness throughout most of the year because of the prevailing levels of steel production and disruptions caused by cutbacks by japanese buyers as they sought to bring their purchases into better alignment with their reduced needs nevertheless the iron ore operations in which utah has an interest produced on the whole a slightly improved profit over last year this resulted when marcona's mining operations in peru resumed profitability for the year as higher margin pellets comprised a greater share of its sales and the labor disturbances of 1971 were not repeated utah's oldest mine is the iron springs open pit mine located near cedar city utah over the years this mine despite its limited size has been a consistent contributor to profits virtually all production from iron springs is delivered to u.s steel corporation's geneva works near provo utah under a contract scheduled to expire in 1976 shipments from iron springs were 522,000 tons for the year virtually equal to the 1 971 performance near iron springs utah performs stripping and mining operations under contract on properties controlled by cf&i steel corporation the mount goldsworthy mine in western australia one third of which is owned by utah development company shipped 6,012,000 tons of iron ore in fiscal 1972 shipments fell short of expectations and were below the 6,549,000 tons shipped last year because of the reduced requirements of the structures in which we live and work our automobiles and trans portation networks the productive machinery of our nations ... all require vast quantities of steel to meet these demands a diverse selection of iron ore products ranging from direct shipping ores to highly beneficiated pellets is marshalled from the world's many and varied sources of supply p gy p process to concentrate the sands of the waipipi proje t the final on-bearing beach