TIN 725

 Upon the basis of increases in cost of production, transportation, and insurance,
producers campaigned during 1941 for an increase in the price paid them for
tin ore. The outcome of this resulted in an amendment to the agreement with
Metals Reserve Co. on June 30, 1942, retroactive to January 1, 1942, changing
the buying price from
48Y2 cents f. o. b. U. S. ports to 60 cents f. o. b. Chilean and Peruvian
ports and providing for acceptance of concentrates equivalent to 30,000 tons
of fine tin a year, suppliable at the option of sellers, in contrast to the
18,000 tons agreed to originally. Although Patino Mines and Enterprises Consolidated
does not participate in the Metals Reserve contract it will profit by this
new arrangement. Under provisions of a contract with the British Government,
the company is entitled to receive settlement upon the basis of the Metals
Reserve Co. buying price.
 British Malaya.—On December 8 the Japanese invaded Malaya, landing
at Kota Bharu airdrome across from the Thailand border iii the northern part
of the peninsula. Thereafter tin-mining activities were disrupted and ceased
entirely as fighting raged toward Singapore. However, the rate of production
at tin mines and smelters during the year up to December had .been about
the same or slightly higher than m the previous year. The 1941 quota for
Malaya under the Tin Control Scheme was 100,536 long tons, but up to the
end of November only 74367 tons had been exported. As mine production virtually
ceased in December, it has been assumed that total c~utput in 1941 was 78,000
tons or about 9 percent less than in 1940. Ores imported for reduction at
smelters in the Straits. Settlements from sources other than Malaya during
the first 11 months of 1941 totaled 37,293 tons compared with 39,643 tons
in the same period of 1940 and 45,576 tons in all of 1940. During the first
10 months of 1941, the smelters shipped 108,855 tons of pig tin, which up
to then had been exported at a rate a little above, that of the previous
year. On December 6 stocks of concentrates at Singapore and Penang are believed
to have amounted to the equivalent of 9,975 tons of fine tin, slightly more
than half of which was at Penang. Stocks of refined pig tin at Singapore
and Penang on July 31 totaled 3,430 tons, of which about 80 percent was at
Penang; these had been reduced somewhat, but as of November 30, the carry-over
in the Straits Settlements exceeded 2,700 tons, of which about 75 percent
was at Penang.'5
 Strict censorship prevailed during the latter part of 1941, and publication
of figures relating to mine output was prohibited; but repbrts indicated
almost complete cessation of mining operations toward the end of the year,
owing to the Japanese invasion. Shipping difficulties also affected output,
and enemy action caused the loss at sea of some mining equipment. With the
advance of the Japanese army toward Singapore, shipments of cOncentrates
from the mines ceased. Smelting slowed so that by the end of January 1942
the Singapore smelter* was doing clean-up work only. By the time Singapore
surrendered on February 15, 1942, all tin at Pulau Brarn in Kepple Harbor
where the smelter was situated had been sent away. Reliable information on
the condition' of the smelter (which had been the largest in the world) is
not available, but it may have been damaged when the harbor was bombed. The
smelter at George Town, Penang, stopped accepting ' ore only shortly before
11 AmerIcan Metal Market: Vol. 48, No. 249, December 30, 1941, p.5.