Document MMdyK6Xp8YoVj4Qk0VwGr0ydM

me mo k a h d o m EAST CHICAGO PLANT Of IKTEKHATI0HA1. SUELTIBC AND RlflSlkg COKPAN.f At the tin* it >ta abut down in August of tbo currant year, this float consisted of a lend refinery, an electrolytic white load float and a sine oxldo float. Tbo load refinery woo constructed la the roar 1918 la eoaaoetloa with tbo Tooolo smelter. It bod an ialtlol capacity of 5,000 tons of lood par aontb wblob woo later laoroaaod to 9,000 toao. for tbo post thirty yoaro, it wao aaod to reflao tbo lood roeoterod fro* sine ploat rooidaoo at Sroat folio and Soot Holoao as,wall aa tbo lood produced at Tooolo. Subsequent to 1989, tbo quantity of load available for tbo roflaory doellaod to between 5000 aad 5500 toao par month. Aa tbo result of tbo Moll intake aad tbo steadily mounting labor eoata, tbo eoat of refining became excessive. Ia tbo Spring of tbo current year, tbo America* Smelting and Refining Coapony which operates a load refinery at Omaha, Nebraska, offered ue a refining contract wbieb figured out about $5,00 par toa bettor than wo aould do. This contract was accepted and runs for a period of tea yaara. It esrari tbo refining of load produced at Neat Helena as wall as at Tooele. Tba load Is rstarnsd to tbo Anaconda Salas Company and is guaranteed to eontela lass than 0.1 of bismuth which is a better grads of load than wo wore able to produce with tho facilities at Teat Chicago. The load is returned at Omaha with transit privileges corresponding to those vs bad at fast Chicago. Aside fro* tbo faot that the terms offered lost Spring by the - \ \i ' N11307 PNYCQ0G08 7':6 Memorandum - Sheet ft American Smelting and Refining Company are morn favorable thaa any terae previously offered by that company, the contract contains a new clause providing for the ratnrn of 90$ of all bismuth in excess of 0.25$ as refined astal reedy for the market. Tooele lead normally contains about 0.25$ bismuth which was not recoverable by the refining methods In use at last Chicago and at times made the sale of the lead difficult as it was considered an Objectionable impurity. Three or four times during eaab year, a by-produet of the Anaconda smelter which contained considerable blsauth as well as seas lead, was shipped to the Tooele smelter for the production of a lead bullion con taining from 2 to 5$ of blsauth. This bullion was ussd in ths White Lead Plant and yielded a bleauth residue running abont 90$ Bi which was readily raflned to blamuth aetel running 99.9$ Bl. Production of blamuth from this sourea amounted to 3,550,000 pounds for ths past tan years and ylsldsd gross profits of naarly 12,000,000. Under ths eontraet with Omaha, the quantity of bismuth to ho returned to us will bs substantlslly ths aama as ths possible recovery with our former prsetlee. Ths opsratlons st Toosls ars simplified in that tha so-esllsd "bismuth runs" will no longsr ha nsosssary. The Whits Lead Plant was sstabllshsd at Past Chicago In ths yssr 1919 and used a novel eleetrolytle process developed by Mr. Timer A. Sperry. The plant le eapablt of producing about 10,000 tons of whits laad per year. At ths tins ths plant was built. It was considered worth while partly because the new pHtcocooai^ Kenorendum - Sheet ft process > exptected to produce shite lead of Superior quality end partly beeeuse it provided an additional outlet for lead la times of slack demand. There was a eonsldereble margin between the price of lead and the price of white lead. This margin has tended to diminish and the demand for white lead ham steadily decreased on account of competition from other white pigment* developed during the peat twenty-five or thirty yeara, each as lithopoas and tltaaoz. The future of white lead la now con sidered .somewhat uncertain and since tha plant is so longer needed for the reeovery of bismuth, it seemed edvieable te go out of the white lead business. In 1922, it was decided to satebllah a zine oxldo plant at Hast Chicago and in 1925, a similar plant was built at Akron. These plants ware Justified on a basis siailar to that applying to tbs White head Plant, vis, the spread batvaan tba price of sine oxide and metallic sine and tha need for increas ing our market for metallic sine. Tba latter consideration was particularly important because up to about sight years ago, tba contract* under which we purchased concentrates for our sine plants, obllgatsd us to pay for the zinc regardless of onr ability to market the metal so purchased. Curing the past eight years most of our largs tine eoseestrate shippers have gons on a tell basic whereunder we treat the concentrates on agreed up on terms and return the recovered metal to the shipper. This type of contract baa relieved us of what formerly was a consider A\>able narket risk and since so much of our sine business is now PNYC0CQ08748 Kanorandun - Sheet f4 o b this basis, e do not need tbs outlet provided by the sine oxide plant. Is feet, our own else Is at tines scarcely suffi cient to prarlde tbs seeds of the Brass Plants, for the past year or two, the oxide plant has been operating at a very redueed scale on secondary sine aetel, the supply of which is uncertain and fluctuates between wide Halt*, for these reasons. It was considered advisable to drop out of the sine oxide business. We were fortunate in being able to dispose of the fast Chicago plant at a pries of about fl,000,000 to the fegle Pieher Coapany. They propose to uee It .for the treatment of secondary lesd, such as battery plates, and the production of zinc o.Tidc from secondary natal and ore* produced from sene of their nines. They nay continue the operation of the Shite Lead Plant. They are in the pigment business on a considerable scale and the plant is 'well adapted to their purposea and is well located, for various reasons, they decided to elcte down a plant they had in Cincinnati shout tbs tine we decided to dis continue operations at fast Chicago. The acquisition of tbe plant by Kagle Flchtr ssena like a logical step. In addition to the noncy which we received for the plant end adjacent unoccupied lend, the diseontinuanee of our operations released approximately two end one-half million dollars tied up In warehouse end process iBTantorlss. Thus, the transaction made available to Anaconda for other purposes approxinately three and one-half million dollars. Savings In lead refining coats nay be estimated at $200,000 per.year. The best that could be eald for our white lead end sine oxide <\ A p^ccoooa^ Henorendu* - Shast #8 : operations Is that on a consolidated basis they broke seen rt/n October 28, 1946 A PNYC00008750