copper share of sales 1975 pounds 1 56,978,000 1 29,548,000 1 33,81 3,000 in 1975 the world copper market was characterized by low prices and increas ing inventories the london metal exchange price per pound of copper ranged between 67.8 and 52.3 cents dur ing utah's fiscal year a sharp drop from the record high of 1.52 reached in 1974 reflecting significantly lower product prices profitability from copper opera tions was substantially below the record contribution of 1974 utah's interests in copper are repre sented by the island copper mine located at the north end of vancouver island in british columbia canada and a 25 owned affiliate cyprus pima mining company located approximately 25 miles south of tucson arizona the island copper mine started production in october 1971 and made its first shipment to japan in december of that year under contracts negotiated in 1969 and 1970 the agreements with japanese smelters include commitments for 100 of island copper's production through 1 976 and approximately 64 of its production during the succeeding five years prices under the agreements are based on london metal exchange quotations copper ore is mined by open pit methods at island copper and hauled to a nearby mill the milling operation includes crushing grinding and concen trating of the copper minerals by a flotation process supporting facilities also include a deep-water dock adjacent to the mill and a sizeable housing development in the town of port hardy situated ten miles from the mine site operationally 1975 was a good year for utah's copper activities island copper mined and milled 13.7 million tons of ore and shipped approximately 116 million pounds of copper copper shipments which easily surpassed the 91 million pounds of copper delivered in strike-impacted 1974 were achieved in spite of second-quarter shipping defer rals implemented to accommodate cus tomer requests the average price per pound of copper realized during 1975 was 57 cents as compared to 1.05 in 1974 shipments of gold the mine's most important by-product totaled 62,000 ounces in 1975 as compared to 45,000 ounces in 1974 the average price per ounce of gold sold in 1975 was 168 as compared to 146 in 1974 the cyprus pima mine which is also an open-pit mine has a milling capacity of approximately 53,500 tons per day sales of copper during 1975 totaled 165 million pounds as compared to 154 million pounds in 1974 approximately 36 of cyprus pima's output was sold to u.s producers and the average price per pound of copper sold in 1975 was 61 2(4 as compared to 82.3f during 1974 a fleet of 35 haul trucks capable of transporting 120 and 170-ton loads oper ates 24 hours a day in the island copper pit copper ore is hauled to the crusher and overburden is delivered to spoil piles at the processing mill an atomic absorption spectrophotometer is among the sophisticated tools used to provide control of the milling operation