TIN PRODUCTION

Hokitika Guardian, 10 August 1932, Page 8

TIN PRODUCTION

WORLD PRICE AND STOCKS. PRODUCTION CONTROL. • - WELLINGTON, August 8. In an attempt to reduce the world /Stocks of tin and so to restore the price, an international committee of control has during the last year dr two been drastically limiting the annual production of the metal. An account of. ■the present situation was given by Mr J. G. ' Goosman, M.1.M.M., a mining, engineer who returned , rto New Zealand by the ißangitata after many years” in South America. During his time there he worked at altitudes above sea-’eve] varying from 5000 feet’ to 16,000 feet; and even examined a mine at a height of 18.2C0 "feet.

The world production in 1928, said Mr Goosman, was 180,000 Tons of fine tin) of " which the Malay States produced 42 per cent;, Bolivia 22 per cent;’; and the rest of the world, including Nigeria, Australia, China, the remainder. The Tin Control Commission, of London, ‘had been gradually reducing the (output of ail mine’s until this year the world production of tin would be 90,000; tons, of which Bolivia would produce the same proportion. The nrtfie of tin "had been' £3OO ,‘a ton in" 1926, and was at present about £l2O a ton. Production’ had beeft reduced in an attempt to get present stocks- consumed, and tjie price in some measure restored. .

INCREASE IN STOCKS. . The largest tin mine in the world, at LmliAgna, in Bolivia, "was in' the Patino group, which took its nam e from Sr. Simon Patino,. Bolivian Minister in Paris, who was chairman of the T*n ■Control Commission, and also largely 1 kitjereiited in allied industries. The commission had been set up at the be-' . ginning of 1931 on an internat'onal basis. Normal .stocks of ' tin totalled--16,000 tons, but during the crisis had gone as high as- 60,000 tons. The commission was formed in order to reduce stocks "by control. • ■lt eat- up an important subsidiary body, a research committee, in • order. to‘discover new uses for the metal, and this committee had been on the job for some time. The largest used of tin was the automobile industry, and owing to the depression the amount used had decreased. Tin was employed eLso in the manufacture 1 of artificial- silk, in white metal for bearings, and in the tinning industry- The United States consumed 69 per cent, of the world’s tin production, . but consumption h-ad fallen tliCr-e during the depression just as in every .other.-country, '

LONG EXPERIENCE. Before going to South America, Mir, '•oos man was for a number of year.with' the Waihi Gold Mining Company. Paring his 20 years overseas & lias done both - copper mining and sEver milling.' ’At Gollahuasi la'.-.Grande he worked at an altitude of 16,000 feet above sea level. Subsequently' ihe ■, was at the iCondariaco silver mine's in Ch'le, then with the- Inca ' Milling "Comptnj' iii Peru, and from there' bebamb ■ gen &J r?k manager of the Moracocola tin mines in Bolivia. Before returning to .V.‘e\v Zealand for six months in 1915 he was general manager of the Gatico' copper mines in Chile. When he went back to South America •he was first at the’ Ocuri tin mines in Bolivia, ®and then linked up with the' Patino group *4 general manager of the Araca Tin ■TMining 'Company, a position he has he T d for the, last 5£ years.