Utah Copper

ANY suitable characterization of the Utah Copper enterprise (now the Utah Copper Division of Kennecott Copper Corporation) involves the use of superlatives. If comparative records were compiled, after the fashion of baseball, the big opencut mine at Bingham Canyon, Utah, undoubtedly would hold dozens of championships in the mining world. For example, a few can be set down as follows: (1) The mine is the biggest man-made hole (excavation) in the crust of the earth! At the end of 1955 the total quantity of material moved (ore and overburden) was 1,673,000,000 tons or approximately 800,000,000 cubic yards. This is about3% times the yardage of earth moved in the original digging of the Panama Canal. It exceeds by fifty per cent the quantity dug in the justly famous Hull-Rust Mahoning open-pit iron mine on the Mesabi Range in Minnesota. (2) It holds first place among the mines of the world as to aggregate tonnage of ore mined and milled (734,000,000 tons at the end of 1955). (3) It holds first place among the mines of the world as to the aggregate quantity of metal produced (13,047,000,000 Ib- 6,523,500 tons-of refined copper). This is more than the actual production of all the mines in the United States during the eight-year period 1948 to 1955 inclusive. (4) In 1943, Utah established these world records: Tons of ore milled in a 24-hr day.. ................. 108,000 Tons of ore and waste moved in a 24-hr day.. ....... 235,000 Tons of ore milled in one month. ................... 3,074,000 Tons of ore milled in a year. ....................... 35,375,000 Pounds of copper produced in a year……….. 639,0000,000