118 MINERALS YEARBOOK, 1941

REVIEW BY COUNTRIES

 Australia.—The pressing need for copper for defense purposes in Australia
led the Commonwealth Prices Commissioner to raise the refined copper price
to £86 lOs. per ton in midyear as an inducement toward increased production.
At about the same time, the Minister for Supply and Development appointed
a committee to investigate ôopper and bauxite resources. Australia
was reported to be partly dependent on overseas sources for copper and entirely
dependent for bauxite.
 Production figures are not available for 1941, but 22,680 metric tons were
produced at smelters in 1940 compared with 20,219 in 1939. Output is mainly
from Mount Lyell, Tasmania, and Mount Morgan, Queensland. At the annual meeting
of the Mount Lyell Mining & Railway Co., Ltd., on December 12, it was
stated that larger tonnages of ore were handled during the year but that,
owing to lower copper content, the copper output was a little less.
 The Commonwealth Government advanced £10,000 to Mount Morgan, Ltd.,
for the unwatering and development of the Great Fitzroy mine at Mount Chalmers
near Rockhampton. The annual capacity for production was expected to be 2,000
tons. The Government also advanced £50,000 to Mount Isa Mines, Ltd.,
Queensland, which produces silver, lead, and zinc, so that it may develop
copper ore at the mine. It was reported that annual production probably would
reach 5,000 tons. Additional prospecting and development work were in progress
on other parts of the continent.
 Belgian Congo.—Available data on production of copper in Belgian Congo
indicate a sharp increase in activity there. Smelter output was estimated
at 165,000 metric tons in 1941 compared with 148,619 tons in 1940. As indicated
in the preceding report of this series (Minerals Yearbook, Review of 1940,
p. 108), the Belgian and British Governments reached an agreement early in
1941 for the delivery of 126,000 metric tons of copper to the United Kingdom
by Union Minière du Haut Katanga. The overrunning of Belgium by the
Germans had increased the quantities of Belgian Congo copper available to
the British and actually made all of it available to enemies of Germany.
At the annual meeting of Union Minière du Haut Katanga (May 1941),
the company capacity to produce copper was reported as 200,000 tons. New
prospecting was then reported to have substantially increased ore reserves.
Figures covering imports of copper into the United States during the first
9 months of 1941 show that about 28,600 metric tons of regulus, black or
coarse copper, and cement copper and 24,900 tons of unrefined black blister
and converter copper were received from Belgian Congo during that period;
dat* covering all of 1941 are not available for publication.
 Brazil—Occurrences of copper in Brazil and recent attempts to promote
production there are described in the Foreign Minerals Quarterly of July
1941, issued by the Bureau of Mines.
 Canada.—Statistics on mine production of copper in Canada are confidential
for both 1940 and 1941. There seems little reason to question, however, that
new annual ~peaks were reached each year. There were noteworthy consumption
gains also in 1941, as Canadian industry assumed a larger* share in supplying
the increasing war needs of the British Empire for fabricated products. The
Northern