and enhance prospects for foreign investment in australia the likelihood of developing the new norwich park mine is improved by this action also the queensland government has relaxed its limitations on the amount of coking coal which may be exported from the mines in which utah development company has an interest as a further favorable step utah and mitsubishi de velopment pty ltd have initiated a program to increase australian participation in their queensland coking-coal projects steam coal energy for electric generation steam coal derives its name from its primary historical use — it is burned in the process of converting water to steam which in turn provides the energy to drive electric generators and other ma chinery technology also exists to convert the energy content of coal to a product similar to natural gas the navajo mine located on the navajo indian reservation in new mexico represents utah's most substantial interest in steam coal in terms of production it is one of the largest coal mines in the u.s it furnishes the entire fuel requirements of the four corners power plant owned by a group of six utility companies contracts with the utilities are for a period of 35 years expiring in 2004 with options on the part of the utilities to renew for an additional 1 5 years the chairman of the navajo tribal council has advised utah that the navajo tribe intends to seek renegotiation of the royalties provided for by the existing lease of utah's 1 1 billion tons of coal reserves at navajo recoverable by surface mining methods less than one-third is committed to the four corners plant additional reserves have been conditionally committed to two utility companies which have coal-gasification plants under consideration a second substantial steam-coal operation is the san juan mine eight miles north of navajo here utah serves as a contractorfor the owner western coal company delivering coal to two utilities for power generation utah also has extensive steam coal reserves near craig colorado with first shipments of coal to a new generating plant scheduled to begin in late 1977 copper with gold as a by-product one of the first metals used by man copper still ranks high among the useful metals because of its electrical conductivity properties and high resistance to corrosion utah international has two copper interests one is the island copper mine an open-pit operation located at the north end of van couver island in british columbia canada the other is a 25 interest in cyprus pima mining company located south of tucson arizona the island copper mine in production since 1 971 , has sales agreements with smelters which will require plant production of between 80 and 100 during calendar years 1977 through 1979 ore reserves at the mine at 1 976 production rates indicate a mine life of about 1 8 years in addition to the mine and milling operations utah has built supporting facilities that include a deep-water dock and a sizeable housing development in the nearby town of port hardy significant amounts of gold molybdenum silver and rhenium are by-product metals of the island mine shipments of gold the most important of these by-products reached a high of 60,000 ounces in 1975 the cyprus pima mine also an open-pit operation has a milling capacity exceeding 50,000 tons of ore per day with steam coal deposits estimated to exceed a billion tons utah's navajo mine is a major producer of coal for electric power generation ritish columbia in island copper's processing mill a technician checks the content of ore samples while below the mine's fleet of 35 haul trucks operates around the clock the mine has the taining some 115 million pounds of copper metal annually