Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA ANNUAL REPORT for the Year Ended December 319 1960 BRITISH COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES VICTORIA, B.C. HON. W. K. KIERNAN, Minister. P. 3. MULCAHY, Deputy Minister. J. W. PECK, Chief Inspector of Mines. S. METCALF& Chief Analyst and Assayer. HARTLEY SARGENT , Chief, Mineralogical Branch. K. B. BLAKEY, Chief Gold Comntisioner and Chief Commissioner, Petroleum and Natural Gas. J. D. LINEHAM, Chief, Petroleum and Natural Gas Conservation Branch. Major-General the Honourable GEORGE RANDOLPH PEARKES, V.C., P.C., C.B., D.S.O., MC., Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of British Columbia. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONOUR: The Annual Report of the Mineral Industry of the Province for the year 1960 is herewith respectfully submitted. W. K. KIERNAN, Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources. Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources Office, March 31st, 1961. A8 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960 LIST OF ILLUSTRATION%Continued DRAwrivcsContinued ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MINISTER OF MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES, 1960 Introduction A Report of the Minister of Mines of the Province of British Columbia has been published each year from 1874 to 1959. Beginning in 1960, it is the Report of the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources. The Annual Report records the salient facts in the progress of the mineral industry, also much detail about individual operations, including those undertaken in the search for, exploration of, and development of mineral deposits, as well as the actual winning of material from mineral deposits. The Annual Report of the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources now contains introductory sections dealing with Statistics and Departmental Work, fol- lowed by sections dealing with Lode Metals; Placer; Structural Materials and Industrial Minerals; Petroleum and Natural Gas: Inspection of Lode Mines, Placer Mines, and Quarries; Coal; and Inspection of Electrical Equipment and Installa- tions at Mines and Quarries, each with its own table of contents. A table listing the properties described, in geographic groupings, precedes the index. An introductory review of the mineral industry and notes at the first of several of the main sections deal generally with the industry or its principal subdivisions. Notes in the various sections deal briefly with exploration or production operations during the year or describe a property in more complete detail, outlining the history of past work and the geological setting as well as describing the workings and the mineral deposits exposed in them. Some notes deal with areas rather than with a single property. The work of the branches of the Department is outlined briefly in the section on Departmental Work. This section is followed by notes dealing briefly with the work of other British Columbia or Federal Government services of particular interest to the mineral industry of British Columbia. Information concerning mine opera- tions and some of the activities of the Inspection Branch of the Department of Mines and Petroleum Resources is contained in the section on Inspection of Lode Mines, Placer Mines, and Quarries, early in the section on Coal, and in the section on Inspection of Electrical Equipment and Installations at Mines and Quarries. The section on Statistics begins with an outline of current and past practice in arriving at quantities and calculating the value of the various products. A9 Review of the Mineral Industry* The end of the calendar year 1960 marked the end of the 1951-60 decade and the beginning of a new one. The past decade witnessed material changes in the mineral industry of British Columbia in production, exploration, and methods. Table I, page A 17, shows that the total value of mineral production to date is more than $4,370,000,000, of which almost $1,370,000,000 is credited to the 1951-60 decade. The production of principal metals in the decade amounted to 37 per cent of the accumulated value of the principal-metals group to the end of 1960; com- parable percentages for the other groups of products are: other metals, 74; indus- trial minerals, 74; structural materials, 55; fuels, 17. These percentages reflect in part the history of production and in part changing prices. The accumulated value of coal was already substantial at the end of 1900; production continued at a relatively high level during the early decades of this century, but baas declined markedly in the past decade. For the metals, gold, silver, copper, and lead, except placer gold, production before 1900 represents a small part of the value to the end of 1960, and for zinc production did not begin until 1905, and was small until World War I. The value for the principal-metals group, in the last ten years, also reflects the fact that the average prices for silver, copper, lead, and zinc have been materially higher than for any earlier decade. The value for this group for the past decade is $1,182,000,000, and the value from 1858 to the end of 1960 is $3,198,- 000,000. Production of the metals listed as “ miscellaneous ” has been mainly in the last few decades, and for iron, nickel, and tungsten has been mainly or entirely in the last decade. The position of the industrial-minerals -qoup is similar; the entire production of asbestos, amounting to 45 per cent of the accumulated value for the group, has been in the last decade; sulphur production, although substantial in the preceding periods, has increased greatly in the last decade. Production of structural materials and the relative importance of the structural-materials group increased substantially in the last decade to meet the needs of the expanding trans- portation system, and the needs of the building industry. In the period, cement- making capacity increased greatly, and a plant to produce bloated shale for light- weight aggregate and pozzolanic additive came into production. For fuels, the output and value of coal has declined, but the entire. production of oil, natural gas, and natural-gas liquid by-products belongs to the last decade, and mainly to the latter half of the decade; consequently, the value for the fuels group has increased substantially. During the decade 1951-60 the output of gold declined; production of zinc increased. Copper fell to a very low point in 1958 because of mine closures; how- ever, with the reopening of Britannia and the revival of copper-mining in the Boundary camp, much of the loss in copper output has been regained. Increasing production in 1961 and 1962 because of the opening of new copper mines should restore copper output to the level reached in the period 1925-30. Increased mining of iron ore, recovery of by-product iron at Kimberley, high production of industrial minerals and structural materials, and increasing production of petroleum and natural gas hold promise of increasing mineral production in the decade that begins with 1961. Several aspects of the geographical distribution of mineral production in the decade 1951-60 are worthy of note. They include the increasing importance of the Liard Mining Division because of asbestos production at Cassiar and production * BY Hartley Sargent. A 10 REVIEW OF THE MINERAL AND PETROLEUM INDUSTRIES, 1960 A 11 of natural gas and oil east of the Rocky Mountains. Asbestos production began modestly in 1952 and continued to increase throughout the decade, reaching a value of $11,700,000 in 1960 and more than $53,700,000 for the decade. Production of natural gas for use in Fort St. John began in 1954, and reached substantial volume in 1957, when completion of the Westcoast transmission-line gave access to a wide market in British Columbia and western United States. Liquid by-products and sulphur, derived from cleaning natural gas at Taylor, are credited first in 19% Oil production to date has been for local use. Oil, gas, and liquid by-products had a combined value of more than $9,225,000 in 1960. Production of silver, lead, zinc, and copper showed considerable changes in geographic distribution. The principal source of silver, lead, and zinc continues to be in southeastern British Columbia in the Fort Steele Miming Division, which, in the decade 1951-60, yielded 61 per cent of the Provincial total value for that group of metals. Important production began in fhe Nelson Mining Division at the end of Ihe preceding decade, and in the decade 1951-60 that division con- tributed more than a tenth of the Provincial output of the group. In the same period the Slocan Mining Division contributed 9 per cent of the Provincial output of those metals. The Sloan Mining Division now includes the former Ainsworth Mining Division, and a large part of the output came from mines at Ainsworth and Riondel, in the former Ainsworth Division. The Atlin, Skeena, Omineca, Vancouver, Revel- stoke, Golden, and Greenwood Mining Divisions all contributed to silver-lead-zinc production, although in the final years of the decade the Atlin, Skeena, Revelstoke, and Omineca production had ceased or was small. In 1950 copper production came largely from Vancouver and Similkameen Divisions (Britannia and Copper Mountain mines); in 1960* Britannia contributed more than half the copper out- put; the Copper Mountain mine had been shut down since 1957, but five other mines were in production, two of them (Texada and Giant Nickel mines) producing copper as an important by-product. Thus copper production had become more widely distributed. Gold, the remaining metal in the principal-metals group, had shrunken materially in annual output, and in the number of mines operated primarily to produce it. Other changes in lode-metal production in the decade 1951-60 relate to iron, nickel, and tungsten.