COMMERCIAL CONTROL
The Knaben mines, in Fjotland, the most famous and probably the only successful molybdenum mines in Norway, were acquired in 1905 by an English company, the Blackwell Developing Corporation. Later a newly organized Norwegian company, with head office in Christiania, took over the mines at a price of 2,500,000 crowns.
In Mexico the large molybdenum deposit in the Sahuaripa district of eastern Sonora is owned by George Fast, of Douglas, Arizona. The Lucky Tiger-Combination Gold Mining Co., of Kansas City, Mo., (American) owns the deposits in the Montezuma district. Another American company has acquired deposits near Poza, Sonora, about 20 miles north of Hermosillo. A deposit located 35 miles from the port of Topolabampo, northwestern Sinaloa, is owned by an American. The Compañia Minera Aurora y Anexas, operating molybdenum mines near Coyame and Marquez, northeastern Chihuahua, is owned by the Madero estate. The ore has been shipped to Leonard Worcester, El Paso, Texas, agent for the estate and also purchaser for L. Vogelstein & Co., New York, formerly a branch of the German metals combine.
In the United States, during the war the claim was made a number of times, both privately and in the press, that German interests were trying to obtain control of the molybdenum deposits of the country. This was due to the fact that the American Metal Co., which operates at Climax, Colorado, as the Climax Molybdenum Co., and which has some other molybdenum deposits, was formerly controlled by German interests. It is true that the majority of the stock of the American Metal Co. was owned in Germany, but Mr. Palmer, the Alien Property Custodian, took charge of this stock, and the affairs of the American Metal Co. were readjusted to changed conditions. The principal stockholders of the Primos Chemical Co. were four brothers by the name of Boericke. Before the war they had strong German connections, but outside of their deposits at Empire they made no special effort to get large molybdenum holdings in this country and did not seek to get a combination of any of the operating companies. The Primos Chemical Co. has since 1919 been taken over by the Vanadium Products Corporation, affiliated with the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The Molybdenum Products Co., Denver, Colorado, which owns a part of the molybdenum deposit on the slope of Bartlett Mountain, near Climax, and operates a 200-ton mill, is a subsidiary of E. J. Longyear Co., exploring engineers, of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Both companies are owned by American stockholders.
In Canada and Australia it is certain that no one large interest has control, as the ore comes from a number of more or less independent small mines.
A large number of patents have been issued in connection with the concentration and metallurgy of molybdenum. None of these is vital to production; most are valueless, and even those that have a distinct value do not necessarily give control to the owner of the patents or secret processes.
In order to insure a steady demand for molybdenum, the prime requisite is a definite knowledge of the properties and uses of molybdenum steel. In the past this has been lacking, and at present it is not possessed by the majority of operators and steel makers. Europe should assist materially in supplying this deficiency. Molybdenum steel at the present time is in the same position as vanadium steel was a number of years ago—it is on trial. This uncertainty caused a very decided slump in the demand for molybdenum concentrates in the spring of 1918. A control of molybdenum is more likely to come through the manufacture of molybdenum steel than through processes connected with the production of concentrates or ferromolybdenum.