In another column we have given a full abstract of the Rio Tinto Company’s report for the past year and our only regret is that, like the Tharsis. the information given in the report is not suflicient. Without hurting the interest of the company in any way the report of this company, in particular, might be made most instructive to both the mining and metallurgical professions, and, incidentally, the cost .of the removal of overburden, which has been done on so large a scale at the Rio Tinto mines, would probably afford some information to the Committee in Congress that is now engaged in investigating the probable cost of the Nicaragua Canal. We have no recent figures on this particular point, but we have them of some years back, and we do not suppose that the Rio Tinto Company has retrogressed in the economy of its work. The figures themselves are instructive and it is a great pity the directors of the Rio Tinto Company did not see fit to make them public at the present time.
There is no question whatever that the financial part of the company’s affairs is managed most ably. Taking advantage of the money market, the conversion of the 5 per cent. bonds of three different issues into one consolidated 4 per cent. debt, through the assistance of the Messrs.Rothschild, has already resulted in a saving to the company of £64,000 a year, and during the current year this saving will amount to £74,000, which is equal to more than 2} per cent. on the share capital of the company.
We have always maintained that the Rio Tinto Mining Company was more of a manufacturing concern than a mining. First of all, in consequence of the enormous proved reserves. and second, because the cost of producing and marketing of both the copper and the sulphur was a fixed quantity, any change from which would certainly be in favor of the stockholders. This report throws some fresh light upon the reserves. Within the 23 years of the company‘s existence 23,000,000 tons have been extracted and yet, by the aid of the diamond drill, the management is satisfied that they still have in sight 135,000,000 tons. Of this quantity it is estimated that 35,000,000 tons consists of low-grade copper, leaving 100,000,000 tons of a grade not lower than the average which has paid the dividends of the past years, so that at the present output of nearly 1,400,000 tons per annum. we may say, safely, that they have still 70 years of life in sight. .
It is somewhat strange to hear nickel-steel termed a new composite metal, yet such is the expression used by one of our English contemporaries. As is shown in our columns of correspondence last week and this the advantages gained by the alloy of steel or iron with nickel have been known and acknowledged by many investigators over a long period of years before the actual use of the alloy was put to practical test.
Engineering and Mining Journal, Volume 61
1896
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