Bloomberg: South Dakota Mining College Grads Can Expect to Earn More than Harvard Grads

The massive Freeport McMoran open pit copper mine at Morenci, AZ. A run on commodities in recent years has created shortages of qualified workers and higher wages for those entering the mining industry. Kresge86 photo

After a nearly decade long bull market for commodities, mining companies throughout the United States have found themselves short of qualified personnel while attempting to keep up with market demand. This has translated to recent graduates from smaller mining colleges earning more than their Ivy-League counterparts right out of school.

A study tracking employee compensation data determined that recent graduates of the 2300 student South Dakota School of Mines and Technology made an annual salary of nearly $57,000.

Those leaving the college of 2,300 students this year got paid a median salary of $56,700, according to PayScale Inc., which tracks employee compensation data from surveys. At Harvard, where tuition fees are almost four times higher, they got $54,100. Those scheduled to leave the campus in Rapid City, South Dakota, in May are already getting offers, at a time when about one in 10 recent U.S. college graduates is out of work.

“It doesn’t seem to be too hard to get a job in mining,” said Jaymie Trask, a 22-year-old chemical-engineering major who was offered a post paying more than $60,000 a year at Freeport- McMoRan (FCX) Copper & Gold Inc. “If you work hard in school for four or five years, you’re pretty much set.”

A fourfold gain in commodities in the past decade reflects both surging demand and the industry’s failure to keep up. While new mineral deposits are getting harder to find, companies also are struggling to add enough skilled workers. That’s partly a legacy of U.S. colleges cutting back on mining programs. There were fewer than 28,000 people employed in U.S. metals mining in 2004, from 58,000 in 1993, the National Mining Association estimates. By 2011, it had rebounded to 40,000.

As many as 78,000 additional U.S. workers will be needed by 2019 to replace retirees, the Society of Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration said in a report in January. In Australia, the largest shipper of coal and iron ore, there will be a shortfall of 1,700 mine engineers, 3,000 geoscientists and 36,000 other workers in the five years ending in 2015, the report said.

Demand for mining-school graduates is exceptional in the U.S., where the unemployment rate for 20-to-24 year olds with Bachelor’s degrees was 11.8 percent in July. The jobless rate across the economy held above 8 percent for a 43rd month in August, government data show.

The total number of schools in the United States that offered mining degrees in 1982 was thirty- today that number is down to fourteen. Tuition for South Dakota School of Mines and Technology runs between $8400 and $13,000. By contrast, with a student body of nearly 27,000 tuition for Harvard averages in the neighborhood of $40,000.

This week also marks the one year of the anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. One of several reasons cited for the protests was the rising costs of college tuition. In fact, Harvard professor, Massachusetts Democrat senate candidate and faux Native American Elizabeth Warren claimed to have been the intellectual brainchild behind the Occupy movement in an interview last year, but has had little if anything to say about the movement since then.

Yet, it somehow turns out the nation needs more mining engineers than it does unemployable Ivy-league Philosophy or Gay, Lesbian and Transsexual Studies Degree holders camped out in parks wondering why tuition for their diplomas are so high.

Today's Train of Thought- Copper Toned, July 7, 2012

Today's Train of thought takes us to the Grand Canyon state and the 60-mile Copper Basin Railway. Since the late 19th century, copper mining has been pivotal to Arizona's economy with the completion of the Southern Pacific railway across the southern portion of the state making it economical to ship copper to market.

The extraction and refining of copper continues to be an important part of Arizona's economy, with the largest copper mine in the USA being located at Morenci in rural Greenlee county. Not surprisingly, Copper has also been big business for Arizona's railroads with some of them having been constructed for no other reason but to haul copper ore, copper concentrates and acid for leeching.

Central Arizona's Copper Basin started up in 1986 when they purchased a former Southern Pacific branchline from Magma Jct, AZ to Winkleman as well as the 7-mile former Kennecott Copper line from Ray to Ray Jct.

Since the beginning of the Copper Basin, the eastern end of the line has acted as a conveyor belt for the ASARCO's Ray mine and the smelter in Hayden, AZ. The Copper Basin also recieves ore from BHP Billiton's [NYSE- BHP] 30-mile San Manuel Arizona Railroad. In addition to shuttling ore, the Copper Basin also hauls gypsum and acid to and from the Union Pacific interchange and Magma Jct. Formerly held by Rail Management and Consulting Corp, the Copper Basin was purchased by Grupo Mexico [BMV- GMEXICOB] subsidiary ASARCO in 2006.

For more than 20 years, Copper Basin has operated primarily with a fleet of hand-me-down second generation EMDs. Here, railpictures.net contributor John Ireland caught Copper Basin railway GP39-2 #401 emerging from a short tunnel at Riverside, AZ near Ray Jct in the setting sun on September 8, 2009. From a photographger's perspective, Ireland speaks very highly of the Copper Basin due to the desert terrain the railway runs through and their very precise schedule, particularly in running the ore train.

Chilean Miners Found Alive and Well 17 Days After Mine Collapse

33 workers missing and feared dead after an Aug. 5th mine collapse in northern Chile were discovered alive and well by rescue workers over the weekend.

At a news conference with family member of the miners outside the San Jose copper and gold mine near Copiapo, Chilean President Sebastian Piñera announced that the miners had been found alive and well in an underground shelter and were able to pass a note through a grapefruit-sized hole to rescuers. The note Piñera displayed during his conference simply read "All 33 of us are fine in the shelter". Rescuers were able to lower a camera through the hole, which showed many of the miners shirtless and waving at the cameras.

The news came as rescuers and loved ones were giving up hope that the trapped be would be found and was cause for celebrations throughout the country, even as the good news was tempered with warnings that it could take up to 4 months to safely extract the miners.

While rescuers are working to shore up the smaller hole with which they can use to drop food, water, medicine and microphones down, details are emerging about the trapped miners' ingenuity in which they used a bulldozer to provide a canal of fresh water and used power from a truck's engine to rig a makeshift lighting system.

A specialized drill loaned by the state-run CodelCo is expected to take 3-4 months to reach the men. Chile's mining minister Laurence Goldborne said that rescuers would have to proceed cautiously in order to avoid triggering another collapse

In the meantime, two smaller shafts will be dug to further accommodate ventilation and communication with the surface. Authorities plan on sending microphones down so the trapped miners can communicate with loved ones on the surface.