Bisbee daily review., 1908-05-10
COPPER PRODUCTIONS COST
 AFFECTED BY NECESSITY
George L. Walker Gives His Opinion Based on Personal h. spections at Practically All of the Producing Mines in
 the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Snlpped to the Atlantic SeaDoafd and lrefned electrolytically, a combined
 process of chemical and electric treatment, the result of which is & chemically pure copper.
 Butte ores yield an average of 65 pounds of copper to the ton; but op-
 erating expenses exceed $S per ton,
 From s1 to s1.50 in silver and gold is
 recovered, however, which keeps the cost of copper down around 10 cents. Few Concentrators In Arizona. | There are only a few copper con
 centrating mills at work in Arizona,
 two each at Clifton and Morenei, and
 one at Globe; but the greater portion bulk as they come from the mines. 1 Straight Smelling Ores.
 Bisbee is the highest grade copper 1 district in the world. All the ore
 mined and treated there yields an ay-
 craze of ' or 8 per cent copper. The
 managers of the Bisbee mines and
 smelters, as a result. do not watch
 the cents but the dollars, and even i these are not looked after so carefully but what another one could
 be saved per ton of ore treated, pro
 vided such a saving was really neces- sary It is not-the mines of Bisbee pour out a golden river of profits year after year.
 In the boundary district of British 1 Columbia what appears to have been
 originally a gigantic deposit of vol ca.iic ash is being smelted direct and | is yielding copper at as low a cost as 1-2 cents per pound. It is self-6ux- ! ing containing all the lime and iron
 necessary to carry the ore through i the furnace and making possible a very low smelting cost. Only about 25 pounds of copper, or about 1-4 per cent is recovered; but the ore also i yields about $1.40 per ton in gold ana
 silver. Mining is done at an exceed l ingly low cost, also, the total operat-
 ing expenses figuring only about s3 l per ton.
 At Ducktown, Tenn, ores yielding 32 to B pounds of copper, and carry ] ing no precious metal values, are be- ing mined from very wide veins and i handled SO economically that the cop per is produced at a cost of about g cents, the direct blast furnace smelt- ing system being employed.
 A New Source of Production. Of tremendous interest at the pres
 ent time are the plans being worked ! out on a gigantic scale for the treat ment of the large deposits of sec
 ondarily enriched porphyry at Bing- ham, Utah and Ely, Nevada. At the , first point one company is now treat 1 ing over 5000 tons of ore daily at a
 gross cost from the ground to the
 copper market of $40 per ton of ore This ore contains less than 2 , per cent copper and the portion being 1 treated yields only 26 pounds to the | ton. At this rate the cost Is only 8
 cents per pound of copper. There is reason to believe that these big DOT phyry deposits will be a tremendous
 factor in the Copper metal market in the future.
 In discussing copper costs I have l included not only the expenses at the
 mine but those of management as well, so that my figures cover the cost of delivering refined copper to con sumers, all expenses paid. Where ores contain gold and silver in addi-
 tion to copper, the cost of the pre- cious metals is not figured. It is as-
 sumed that they help pay the expenses of mining and treating the ores and 1 thus reduce the cost of copper pro- porionately; copper, not gold and silver, being the metal sought
 Average Cost Of Worlds Copper. The average cost of producing the
 worlds output of refined copper dur ing the past 25 years probably has been slightly less than 10 cents per pound. The average selling price has been about i3 1-2 cents per pound. re- sulting in a very substantial profit 1 for ap industry of such magnitude Az, ,T.gF-. : probably cost about 10 I-2 cents, and
 has been sold at an average of about | IT 1-2 cents. there was net profit of ! ' cents per pound, or total profit
 of over Sl00.000 on the product of the
 wirld's copper mines. which aggre-
 gated about l ,550, ,000,0 900 pounds If , the price of copper averages less than IA cents per pound during the present
 year. production probably will not ex-
 ceed 1,350, ,000. 900 pounds, and the az
 gregate profit at 13 1-2 cents will be , about $50, 900
 Big Mines Low Cost Producers. In view of the fact that there are great many mines in which the, copper costs from II to 13 cents per
 pound, there may be some authorities who will dispute my estimate of 10Jz
 cents as the average production cost
 last year. With one or two excep-
 tions, however, all of the worlds
 largest copper mines make their product at comparatively low cost. About 30 per cent of the worlds 1907 output was produced by nine
 mines: Anaconda, Boston & Montana,
 Copper Queen, Rio Tinto, Calumet & Hecla, Copper Range, Calumet & Ari. zona, North Butte and United Verde. All of these, with the exception of Anaconda, produced their copper for g cents per pound or less; Anaconda's
 cost was probably 10, but possibly
 10 1-2 cents. Rio Tinto's cost proba-
 bly, did not exceed 2 1-2 cents, Calu-
 met & ATizona's 1-2 cents, and Bos-
 ton & Montana's I-2 cents.
 There are a few moderately large producers, among which may be men tioned Greene ConsQiidated, the
 Mansfield of Germany. Arizona Cop
 per and the Old Dominion, whose cop per costs from II to IS cents per pound But the aggregate produc- ton of these four companies Is only equal to that of the Copper Queen and Calumet & Arizona combined,
 which are capable of making their
 copper at cost of l-2 cents.