Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1906-01-24
Consumption Of Metal Has Exceeded The
 Production
Four Years Ago Price Was Down To
 10 1-2
(From Saturdays Daily.)

The copper market is quieter, but prices are unchanged. Lake and cleo. trolytic are selling at 10 cents per pound for immediate delivery, and sales for delivery in May and June are re. ported at 1sH to Is% cents. Consum. CTS have, as rule, provided for the greater part of their needs for the re. mainder of the winter and the "arly spring months. Producers. on the other hand, are generally well sold up for . like period. The best opinion is that the present is simply a natural lull in the market which had been extreme. ly active for many months. The Ire. mcndous strength of iron and steel is considered sufficient evidence that the volume of general business will be even greater than year than last, says George l.. Walker, in the Boston Commercial.
 lt is officially announced that the coke shortage has already forced the l closing of half of the furnaces at the Old Dominion smelter. Private ad. vices from Bisbee state that the Cop per Queen shelter was obliged to bank three or four furnaces on the 2nd inst, because of an insufficient coke supply. It Is also stated in southwestern news. papers that the operations of the Greene Consolidated shelter have been considerably curtailed of late from the same cause.
 Exports of copper SO far this month have been of considerable volume, and the prospect is that the total for the year will be heavy. The latest fig ures give the total exports for Dec. as ls,l5s tons. making 239,s63 tons exported for the year. Of this 30,35s tons went to the United Kingdom, 3l ,9O6 to France, 47,444 to ermany, 5s,- 7I9 to Holland, 2,0O6 to Belgium, lO,' O96 to Austria, 7,l62 to Italy, 6,875 to Russia, 43,343 to China and Japan, and l,2OO to sundry other countries. My correspondence makes 1t very plain to me that there exists n more or less vague impression in the minds of many people that "the great mines of Mexico, Canada and Alaska will soon flood the world with copper" and that the present shortage of the metal will be followed by over'production and very low level of prices. As mat ter of fact, there arc as yet no big cop per mines in Alaska. The whole ter ritory produces only half as much cop per AS the shannon mine alone. Mexi' co E big spurt in production has already been realized, it's output having inercas' cd more than 200 per cent in the past five years, due chiefly to the Greene Consolidated mine. In the same pc riod Canada's production has gained l5O per cent. but at the present time is considerably less than that of tho Calumet and Hecla mine. Mexico Canada and Alaska together will moi make as much copper this year as Ari zona, and it is believed that Arizona will hold the lead as n producer ove' Mexico. Canada and Alaska com bined for some years to come.
 Four years ago this month copper sold as low as 10 l2 cents per pound The effort to maintain the price of th' metal around r cents, artihcially, had ,osu,ted in disaster. For . long tim' the price of the metal had been peg ,.d at i6M cents, and all offerings ha' | hecn taken by the pool, which was made up of Amslgamated. The peg broke 1T December. 1901, and the following month the low quotations mentioned were reached
 | It is estimated that the surplus sup niles of copper then in es'stene' amounted to 00,000,000 pounds. o ,his something over 3o0,ooo,ooo | said to have hecn held by Amalgamat ed interests, and the remainder hy va rious independent and sem''indepen dent producers, As the worlds pro duction of copper at that tim amounted to about Oo,Ooo'ooo lbs
 the surplus was approximately nv months output.
 This was about the worst market s'' nation imaginable, The l1 cent teop oer market had encouraged inc orga"''
 aion of very large number of ne'