Word: zinc
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...bulletin board at northern Idaho's 69-year-old Morning Mine, one of the biggest U.S. lead and zinc producers, appeared a mournful notice: "Due to increased costs of labor and supplies, diminishing ore reserves and low metal prices, the Morning Mine will be closed permanently...
...closing, which threw some 250 miners out of work, was the latest casualty in the industry. In the lead and zinc areas of Utah, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma, mining communities are turning into ghost towns. Such companies as American Zinc, Lead and Smelting Co. were laying off refinery employees by the hundreds. Mining employment, which averaged 21,000 in 1947, is down to 14,000 and still dropping; production of lead is off almost 20% from last year, and the output of zinc (usually found with lead) has dropped still further...
Paradoxically, the mining slump has come at a time when U.S. industry is using zinc at a record rate (an estimated 1,100,000 tons this year) and lead consumption is only a shade below the 1950 peak of 1,200,000 tons. But U.S. mines have not benefited; low-priced imports, up sharply in the last few years, exceed U.S. production (see chart...
...gave long-term contracts to producers abroad to insure a big enough supply for the Korean war.and the rearmament program. As foreign mines stepped up production and defense demands tapered, prices started down. Lead has dropped from 19½? a Ib. in the spring of 1952 to 13½?; zinc has fallen even more sharply, from 19½? t010?. At current low prices, U.S. mines simply cannot compete with foreign producers. Up to 70% of U.S. mine costs are in labor, at an average $16 a day. In North Africa and South America, mine labor gets...
Next month, the U.S. Tariff Commission will hold hearings to see what can be done about the slump. Most of the mine owners want a higher tariff. They argue that lead and zinc mining are essential to U.S. defense, that in time of war foreign supplies might be cut off. But that is not a strong argument, since more than 75% of zinc and 50% of lead imports come from Canada and Mexico. In any case, the Tariff Commission can only boost the tariff by about a cent a Ib.; what the miners want is a sliding scale that would...