The Cyprus Mines Corporation was an early twentieth century American
mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...
company based in
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
. In 1914, Charles G. Gunther began prospecting in the
Skouriotissa
Skouriotissa ( gr, Σκουριώτισσα) is a village in the Nicosia District of Cyprus and the site of the former Cyprus Mines Corporation, Skourotissa mines. Today the area is largely uninhabited with only 8 people remaining in the village. ...
area after reading in ancient books that the island was rich in
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
and noticing promising ancient
Roman slag heaps in the area. The company was established in 1916 by Colonel
Seeley W. Mudd
Col. Seeley Wintersmith Mudd (1861–1926) was a mining engineer.
Biography Early life
He was born in Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri on August 16, 1861. He attended Washington University in St. Louis, where he graduated in 1883 with ...
, his son,
Harvey Seeley Mudd
Harvey Seeley Mudd (30 August 1888– 12 April 1955) was a mining engineer and founder, investor, and president of Cyprus Mines Corporation, a Los Angeles–based international enterprise that operated copper mines on the island of Cyprus.
Mudd ...
, and mining engineer/business partner, Philip Wiseman, whose family, along with the Mudds, were the primary owners of Cyprus Mines until the early 1970s when it was sold to Amoco.
History
Initially the mine struggled, but eventually obstacles were overcome and the mine produced money. Turkish and Greek Cypriots were hired, and the town of
Skouriotissa
Skouriotissa ( gr, Σκουριώτισσα) is a village in the Nicosia District of Cyprus and the site of the former Cyprus Mines Corporation, Skourotissa mines. Today the area is largely uninhabited with only 8 people remaining in the village. ...
became a hub as many miners moved there. The corporation took an old-style, paternalistic attitude towards workers, building a
company town
A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...
around the mine. Harvey Seeley Mudd claimed his experience with the Cyprus Mines Corporation influenced him to push the study of
humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
in the
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
college he started,
Harvey Mudd College
Harvey Mudd College (HMC) is a private college in Claremont, California, focused on science and engineering. It is part of the Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds and resources. The college enrolls 902 undergraduate students ...
. The Cyprus Mines Corporation provided copper to
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
right up until the start of the
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Although the company knew that some of its copper sales to Germany would be used to produce weapons for the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
military, at a time before the war when Germany traded for resources with many countries, the owner of the mine argued that stopping those exports would have adversely affected Cyprus. They were, however, disturbed by Hitler's policy of Jewish persecution, and in late 1938, CMC established a relief fund along with their agent to help former business associates get out of Germany.
Long strikes took place in 1948, organized by the
Pancyprian Federation of Labour
PEO, the Pancyprian Federation of Labour ( el, Παγκύπρια Εργατική Ομοσπονδία, tr, Tüm Kıbrıs İşçi Federasyonu), is an umbrella organization for trade unions in Cyprus, which evolved from PSE ( el, Παγκύπρι ...
and the Turkish Cypriot trade unions. After extending the initial five-day strike, the union asked for government intervention. The government declared that they could not start an inquiry since wages were not substandard. As of 1955, the company's copper mines on Cyprus had become the island's largest industry, exporting nearly a million tons of copper a year. Mudd's copper mines on Cyprus supported 2,000 of the island's inhabitants and provided more than 25 percent of the island's entire annual revenue. Cyprus Mines paid its employees 15–20 percent above the island average. The company ran an up-to-date, 65-bed hospital for its employees, built scores of low-cost houses for them to live in, and helped to run schools, sports clubs, welfare centers, and summer camps for their families. One of the operating mines and the company's processing plant fell north of the cease-fire line in Northern Cyprus following the
Turkish invasion of Cyprus
The Turkish invasion of Cyprus began on 20 July 1974 and progressed in two phases over the following month. Taking place upon a background of Cypriot intercommunal violence, intercommunal violence between Greek Cypriots, Greek and Turkish ...
in 1974, whilst the rest of the company's mines were the other side of the
Green Line. Given this insurmountable problem, the Cyprus Mines Corporation pulled out of Cyprus and the
Mavrovouni mine and processing plant remained in an area not controlled by the government of the
Republic of Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
.
List of Cyprus Mines
Over 30 copper deposits, ranging in size from 50,000 to over 20,000,000 tonnes, with grades from 0.3 to 4.5 percent copper have been discovered with most of the mining activity been centered on the following districts:
* Skouriotissa (the oldest operating mine in the world)
* Tamassos
* Kambia
* Kalavassos
* Limni
A few isolated deposits have also been found at Troulli Mine (
Larnaca
Larnaca ( el, Λάρνακα ; tr, Larnaka) is a city on the south east coast of Cyprus and the capital of the district of the same name. It is the third-largest city in the country, after Nicosia and Limassol, with a metro population of 144 ...
), Mangaleni (
Limassol
Limassol (; el, Λεμεσός, Lemesós ; tr, Limasol or ) is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the district with the same name. Limassol is the second largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban population ...
), Peravasa (Limassol) and Vretchia (
Paphos
Paphos ( el, Πάφος ; tr, Baf) is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and New Paphos.
The current city of Pap ...
).
Tailings
As in most mines, the
tailings
In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...
, waste left over from processing ore, are a problem, although in Cyprus' case they were also a boon. The discovery and analysis of copper tailings left on Cyprus by Romans had been important factors in the founding of the company and the modern economic development of Cyprus. As of 2006, there are no plans to clean up the tailings. As the company did while it operated, now Cyprus also prefers to retain the past economic benefits of mining without spending funds on
environmental remediation
Environmental remediation deals with the removal of pollution or contaminants from environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment, or surface water. Remedial action is generally subject to an array of regulatory requirements, and may al ...
, particularly with neither the income from the mines nor the use of the now polluted land surrounding those mines, asserting that modern Cyprus has no way to pay for the cleanup. Local farmers claim that citrus crop yields have been lowered by contaminated dust blowing in. Studies of local fruit have found high heavy metal levels and decreased fruit size and quality. The effect of the mine is a growing issue for Cypriot environmentalists and
NGO
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
s.__NOTOC__
Emissions
According to the
Climate Accountability Institute
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...
, Cyprus Amax was responsible for 0.1% of global industrial
greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and lar ...
up to 2017.
Mergers and acquisitions
In 1979 Cyprus Mines Corporation was acquired by
Amoco Corporation
Amoco () is a brand of filling station, fuel stations operating in the United States, and owned by BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and petroleum, oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company in 1889 around a oil re ...
. Amoco expanded Cyprus into a diversified worldwide mining company. Amoco spun off Cyprus Minerals Company in 1985. In 1986, Cyprus acquired the
Sierrita copper and molybdenum mine near
Tucson, Arizona
, "(at the) base of the black ill
, nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town"
, image_map =
, mapsize = 260px
, map_caption = Interactive map ...
. In July 1988, Cyprus Minerals bought the Inspiration mine and smelting complex in
Miami, Arizona
Miami (Western Apache: Goshtłʼish Tú) is a town in Gila County, Arizona, United States. Miami is a classic Western copper boom-town. Miami's old downtown has been partly renovated, and the Bullion Plaza Museum features the cultural, minin ...
. With the expiry of an agreement to purchase electricity at a favorable rate from the
Salt River Project
The Salt River Project (SRP) is the umbrella name for two separate entities: the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District, an agency of the state of Arizona that serves as an electrical utility for the Phoenix metropolitan a ...
, Cyprus Minerals installed an
ISASMELT
The ISASMELT process is an energy-efficient smelting process that was jointly developed from the 1970s to the 1990s by Mount Isa Mines (a subsidiary of MIM Holdings and now part of Glencore) and the Government of Australia’s CSIRO. It has rel ...
furnace in its copper smelter.
[R R Bhappu, K H Larson and R D Tunis, ‘Cyprus Miami Mining Corporation – smelter modernization project summary and status,’ in: ''EPD Congress 1994'', Ed. G Warren (The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society: Warrendale, Pennsylvania, 1993), 555–570.] This was the first large-scale installation of the ISASMELT process, which was developed jointly by
Mount Isa Mines
Mount Isa Mines Limited ("MIM") operates the Mount Isa copper, lead, zinc and silver mines near Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia as part of the Glencore group of companies. For a brief period in 1980, MIM was Australia's largest company. It has ...
Limited and the Australian government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ("
CSIRO
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentar ...
"). In 1993, AMAX merged with the Cyprus Minerals Company to form Cyprus Amax Minerals Company. Cyprus-Amax was the world's leading producer of molybdenum and lithium, and a leading producer of copper and coal. The company had operations in 24 states and on six continents. In late 1999,
Cyprus Amax Minerals
Cyprus Amax Minerals was a major US-based mining company formed in 1993 through the merger of AMAX with the Cyprus Minerals Company. It was one of the world's largest producers of Molybdenum and Lithium and was a leading producer of copper and coal ...
was acquired by
Phelps Dodge
Phelps Dodge Corporation was an American mining company founded in 1834 as an import-export firm by Anson Greene Phelps and his two sons-in-law William Earle Dodge, Sr. and Daniel James. The latter two ran Phelps, James & Co., the part of the ...
Corporation, which in turn was acquired by
Freeport-McMoRan
Freeport-McMoRan Inc., often called Freeport, is an American mining company based in the Freeport-McMoRan Center, in Phoenix, Arizona. The company is the world's largest producer of molybdenum, is a major copper producer and operates the world's ...
(NYSE: FCX) in 2007, forming the world's largest copper producer.
References
Further reading
*
External links
* {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091027093248/http://geocities.com/ebildir/english_p.htm , date=October 27, 2009 , title=European Union Environmental Policy and Cyprus Mines
What is CMC?
Economic history of Cyprus
Mining companies of Cyprus
Copper mining companies of the United States
Phelps Dodge
1916 establishments in Cyprus
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1916
Copper mines in Cyprus