One of the results of the October announcement has been a recognition on the part of the uranium industry that some limitation on expansion of uranium production is needed. A major expansion of mining and milling operations is now underway. There has been no cutback in domestic uranium procurement. We have reached the time, however, when the uranium industry must look to the growth of an industrial market for its future expansion, unless there should be a major increase in military requirements.

APPENDIX 4

ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION,
Washington, D. C., March 7, 1958.

ADDITIONAL DOMESTIC URANIUM PRODUCTION STATISTICS FOR 1957 ANNOUNCED BY AEC

The Atomic Energy Commission today announced monthly and annual statistics on domestic uranium production for 1957. Included were figures on uranium concentrate, rate of ore processing, domestic ore production, ore fed to process, ore stockpiling, and initial production bonus payments. The data were compiled by the Commission's Grand Junction Operations Office in Grand Junction, Colo. Domestic ore reserves were estimated to total 78 million tons on December 31, 1957. This compares with 60 million tons estimated at the end of 1956. Ore receipts at all private plants and Government-purchase depots in 1957 totaled 3,676,000 dry short tons; ore fed to process totaled 3,575,000 tons, with an average 0.27 percent of U:Os; ore stockpiled as of December 31 was 2,033,000 dry tons; and $2,447,835 was paid during the year in initial production bonus payments.

At the end of 1957 there were 16 uranium-processing mills in operation, including the Government-owned mill at Monticello, Utah. Several new plants are scheduled to be completed in early 1958.

Uranium concentrates received at the Commission's depot in Grand Junction totaled 8,494 tons of U2Os, as follows:

An additional 146 tons were produced as a byproduct in the chemical processing of Florida phosphate rock in Florida and Illinois; from the treatment of Idaho euxenite at the St. Louis plant of Mallinckrodt Chemical Co.; and from reprocessing of refinery residues at Vitro Corp.'s Canonsburg, Pa., plant. Total United States production amounted to 8,640 tons.

RATE OF PROCESSING URANIUM ORES

Uranium-processing plants in the Western United States treated uranium ores at the following approximate daily rates during 1957:

DOMESTIC ORE PRODUCTION

Uranium-ore receipts at all private plants and Government-purchase depots during 1957 totaled 3,676,000 dry short tons:

Or stockpiles in the Western United States as of December 31, 1957, were as follows:

Through December 31, 1957, a total of $11,528,577 had been paid on 891 properties as initial production bonus under the terms of Domestic Uranium Program Circular 6. Payments during 1957 were:

Measured, indicated and inferred ore reserves were estimated to total 78 million tons on December 31, 1957. These are determined in accordance with the definitions for measured, indicated and inferred ore reserves as adopted by the United States Geological Survey and the United States Bureau of Mines and include only

material metallurgically amenable to treatment. Distribution of ore reserves by States is approximately as follows:

(NOTE TO EDITORS AND CORRESPONDENTS.-This announcement is being issued simultaneously by the Grand Junction Operations Office, Grand Junction, Colo.)

APPENDIX 5

[Press release No. 114, January 21, 1958]

JOINT COMMITTEE TO HOLD PUBLIC HEARINGS ON AEC URANIUM ORE
PROCUREMENT POLICIES

From the offices of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy

Senator Albert Gore (Democrat, Tennessee), chairman of the Subcommittee on Raw Materials, announced today that the joint committee would hold public hearings on AEC uranium ore procurement policies, both domestic and foreign, during this session of Congress.

The subcommittee met with AEC Director of the Division of Raw Materials, Jesse Johnson, and AEC Deputy General Manager R. W. Cook on Monday, January 20, 1958. Following the meeting, Senator Gore spoke as follows:

"1. With regard to procurement of uranium from domestic sources, the Commission is undertaking a survey of the hardships and problems caused our domestic uranium miners by the October 28, 1957, AEC announcement limiting further domestic expansion. Copies of the survey will be forwarded to the joint committee on or before March 15, 1958.

"2. After receiving the AEC survey, the joint committee will hold public hearings on AEC uranium ore procurement policies, both domestic and foreign. Members of the public, and representatives of the uranium mining and milling industries, will be invited to testify.

"3. With regard to procurement of uranium from foreign sources, the Commission agreed not to make any new commitments, or to extend existing contracts, until the joint committee has completed its study of AEC uranium ore procurement policies, and has discussed the situation further with the AEC."

APPENDIX 6

ADDRESS BY SENATOR ALBERT GORE BEFORE THE NATIONAL WESTERN MINING CONFERENCE, DENVER, COLO, FEBRUARY 8, 1958

I am very pleased to be here with you this evening. I hope to hear reports from you on your 3-day conference, and to discuss with you some of the problems facing the uranium mining and milling industries today. I also will attempt to comment briefly on some of these problems.

Since 1954, I have been a frequent critic of the Atomic Energy Commission. It is with particular pleasure, then, that I say the Commission is to be commended for having declassified all ore production and reserve figures since June 30, 1955. I think more declassification may be in order.

It may soon be possible, for example, to declassify and make available in public document rooms copies of all milling contracts-both in the United States of America and in Canada. As of December 31, 1957, there were 16 mills operating in the United States (6 in Colorado, 2 in New Mexico, 4 in Utah, 1 in South Dakota, 1 in Arizona, 1 in Wyoming, and 1 in Washington) and 9 more under construction or contract (2 in Colorado, 2 in Wyoming, 1 in Oregon, and 4 in New Mexico). As I understand it, the AEC has followed a policy of keeping secret the individual prices negotiated in these contracts, perhaps in order to drive harder bargains with others and obtain a lower price in subsequent negotiations. This, however, seems to me to raise some problems, in view of the considerable amount of information and bargaining power available to the AEC, as compared to the representatives of the milling company sitting on the other side of the bargaining table.

Since there are no problems of national security or restricted data here, I believe that there are reasons for saying that AEC should make more information of this type available in public document rooms in Washington, D. C., in Grand Junction, and in other places convenient to uranium mining and milling companies. The AEC may have a point in keeping some proprietary information confidential, as a means of preventing price fixing, or following-the-leader practices in negotiating prices. However, the surest way to promote honesty and fair dealing in most any business is to keep everything above board and out in the open.

Also, there are a number of contracts, perhaps a dozen or more, between the Atomic Energy Commission and the El Dorado Mining Co. for purchase of Canadian concentrates. At the present time, the average price being paid under these contracts is higher than the price being paid under our domestic contracts. I realize that there were reasons for keeping these contracts secret at the time that they were originally negotiated with the Canadians, but I believe that those days have now passed and that there are good reasons why these contract prices should not be made public.

Recently, the Atomic Energy Commission has proposed substantial amendments to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 in order to permit greater exchange of information and material with our allies. This information and material would pertain directly to our allies' atomic weapons capability. Perhaps in view of these proposed modifications, we should review our entire security system in order to see whether or not more information could and should be made available to American industry.

Now, let me move on to the subject of the small miner and the dangers of concentration and monopoly in the uranium mining and milling industry. Mr. Elton A. Youngberg, Assistant Manager for Operations of the AEC Grand Junctions Operations Office, in an address here in Denver last December 16 made available some interesting statistics on this problem. According to Mr. Youngberg, the 6 largest shippers of uranium ore during fiscal year 1957 provided 1,871,835 tons of ore, or 55.7 percent of the total production in the United States. That is more than one-half of the total production, and coming from only 6 out of 727 shippers of uranium ore.

Moreover, beginning in 1962, the AEC will purchase its concentrates only from the milling companies. I wonder what the effect of this policy will be upon the small independent producer. Will the large milling companies be able to use this new system to drive the small independent producers out of business?

If the AEC decision to limit drastically further milling is permitted to stand, will this not have the future effect of driving the small miner out of business, and further concentration of power in the hands of the large companies operatin gthe uranium mills?

When one considers that most of our original ore discoveries were made by the individual miners or the small mining company, one must feel a certain sense of sorrow in observing this tendency toward big business and elimination of the small miner.

In uranium procurement, as in other matters, we have problems with our Canadian neighbors. At our request, they joined with us in the quest for uranium in 1948. They subsequently made substantial discoveries, especially in the Blind River area, and are delivering concentrates at the rate of about 10,000 tons this year, and are scheduled to level off at about 13,000 to 14,000 tons per year until most of the contracts expire on March 31, 1962. The Canadians, I am informed, could produce perhaps twice that amount per year except for the brakes that were placed upon the Canadian program by the AEC 22

years ago when it was announced that guaranteed price supports would not. extend, with only a few exceptions, beyond March 31, 1962.

As I understand the AEC plan for the period 1959-62, it is to limit commitments about as follows: Domestic commitments to about 17,000 to 18,000 tons a year, Canadian import commitments to about 13,000 or 14,000 tons a year; and commitments for imports from all other foreign sources, principally South Africa, to about 6,000 tons per year, making a total of about 36,000 to 38,000 tons per year during this period.

The Canadian production is, of course, less rich than our average domestic ores since we get about 51⁄2 pounds of uranium oxide from a ton of ore, as compared with about 21⁄2 pounds of uranium oxide per Canadian ton of ore. Largely for this reason, the AEC feels justified during the current fiscal year in paying an estimated average foreign price per pound of $11.15, as compared with the estimated average domestic price of only $9.60 per pound of U.Os in the current fiscal year 1958.

I can well understand the unhappiness of the domestic uranium miner in seeing his Government pay a higher price for processing ores in Canada that do not even meet the 0.20 percent minimum quality required for our domestic miners.

On the other hand, speaking as a lawyer, it seems clear to me that, both legally and morally, our contract commitments with our Canadian friends until March 31, 1962, are binding and should be honored. Thereafter, I surely see no justification for paying a premium for Canadian or other foreign ore.

Perhaps our British friends, who are making excellent progress with their Calder Hall reactor development program, can contract to acquire more Canadian

ores.

I realize that this is a complicated subject involving important relations with a close neighbor and ally. Moreover, our committee is just beginning to study this problem. Therefore, we have not reached any final conclusions, and we will not do so immedately nor rashly, but it does seem clear to us that the Canadian program is necessarily very closely interrelated with our own.

As an elected Member of the Senate, I am answerable to the taxpayers of our country, especially to those from the sovereign State of Tennessee. Mineral stockpiling programs, as you are aware, are expensive. However, if it becomes clear that we can stockpile domestic uranium concentrates at a cost substantially less than that of current foreign uranium concentrates, we will consider doing so in the national interest.

A stockpiling bill, H. R. 5010, was introduced by the distinguished chairman of our committee, Congressman Carl T. Durham, of North Carolina, during the last session of Congress. The committee has not yet held hearings on this bill, or on the general desirability for stockpiling, but perhaps the time is now ripe. Some of these thoughts also remind me of the proposal made 2 years ago by Senator Anderson, of New Mexico, and Senator Jackson, of Washington, chairman of our Subcommittee on Military Applications, in a letter to the President proposing the establishment of an atomic "bank" of fissionable materials. They were turned down by the President, primarily on the ground that there was not enough raw materials or processing facilities. Perhaps we should request a reconsideration in terms of a stockpile or bank of concentrates. Such a supply of concentrates would provide the base for increased expansion, either in the military or in the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

I understand that the area perhaps most severely affected by the Commission's recent limitation decision is in Wyoming where there have been substantial recent discoveries, but with only a few milling outlets now available. My good friends and colleagues on the Joint Committee, Congressman Jack Dempsey and Senator Clinton P. Anderson, also remind me that there are hardships and problems in New Mexico, and the Joint Committee has also been advised of difficulties in the front range of Colorado, in Texas, in California, in Washington, and perhaps problems also exist in varying degrees in other places. During the last 2 weeks of February, the Joint Committee will hold open hearings on the development, growth, and state of the atomic energy industry, as required by section 202 of the act. The dates of Monday, February 24, and Tuesday, February 25, have been tentatively set aside for testimony by representatives of the uranium mining and milling industries. I know that some of you in the audience are scheduled to testify, and others are welcome to either appear personally or submit a written statement for the record. The statements should be forwarded to the Joint Committee by March 1, 1958.

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