during the fiscal year additional acquisitions to supplement our real estate portfolio of bay area industrial properties were acquired on favorable terms in south san francisco and martinez in december of 1955 in partnership with haas & haynie our company acquired a 50 per cent interest in 340 acres of hill and marshland property located in the center of a rapidly expanding industrial area within the city limits of south san francisco essentially the operational plan here is that as the hill areas are leveled by grading operations sufficient fill will be created to reclaim the marshland areas during the year 90 acres of marshland were reclaimed and sales of 25 acres of land were consummated at the year end a number of additional sales were being negotiated at the mouth of the sacramento river and bordering on the western shore of carquinez straits the company has acquired control through a combination of purchase and long term lease of 621 acres of hills marsh and tidelands this property offers special advantages to certain heavy industries which require access to modern highway rail and deep water facilities to make the area suitable for use the tideland areas will be filled by a combination of hydraulic mate rial pumped from the channel and dry solid material excavated in conjunction with the leveling of the hill areas to the extent practicable development will be tailored to the specific requirements of the actual industrial purchasers or tenants and to that end negotiations are currently being conducted with interested industrial occupants general profits on the limited land sales made to date have been satisfactory and should be expanded in future years as additional acreage is sold the growth in the san francisco bay area coupled with the shortage of suitable land for industrial commercial and residential expansion has resulted in increas ing land values if the tight money market continues to slow down residential building the pace of our residential property sales will be arrested accordingly such a condition would however be of relatively short duration and the factors supporting the long range growth trend in this area should ultimately prevail is/lttstttstg ajstd shipping utah construction company directly engages in the mining of iron ore and metallurgical coal in the united states through subsidiary or affiliated companies it is interested in the mining of iron ore in canada and in peru copper in arizona and uranium in wyoming during 1956 the high level of business activity both in the united states and abroad resulted in a strong market for steel and the raw materials required by the steel industry this con dition was in turn reflected in increases in the mining income of utah its subsidiaries and affiliates which rose to record levels this improvement in mining income was the principal factor responsible for our improved earnings performance and emphasizes again the impor tance of diversification in stabilizing our profits cedar city utah our company ing operations including crush iling in ihis panoramic view in the iron rich a conducts its own iron ng ope ing screening and stockpiling in ihis panor utah equipment can be seen working in the lindsay pit section of our iron springs mine from where iron ore is shipped and sold by us to major steel producers at a rate exceeding 60,000 tons a month peruvian ir.okt ore utah construction company together with cyprus mines corpo ration owns more than an 80 per cent beneficial interest in three principal companies concerned with the mining shipping and sales of iron ore from the marcona mine near san juan peru ore from this mine has found growing favor with the iron ore buyers through out the world and is currently being supplied to the steel industry in the united states germany and japan prices as well as demand strengthened during the past year resulting in excellent earnings however production and sales were limited by the availability of ocean shipping at reasonable prices oia san juan s a cia san juan s a has an exclusive contract for the sales and shipment of marcona ore the sale of the ore has proceeded satisfactorily and sales con tracts in existence assure continuation of sales in good volume over the next al years the principal problem facing the company has been the unstable cost of ocean freight and the availability of bottoms in which to move the ore the cost of chartered shipping has risen rapidly over the last two years and the international situation on the suez canal has placed a further strain on the capacity of the world's cargo fleets — was