Metals & Minerals

Mr. Roger Edward Tamraz and First Arabian Corporation had diamond concessions in Central African Republic and were shareholders of Sunshine Mining Company (at that time one of the six largest single-lode producers of silver in the United States) which was developing Sunshine Mine in northern Idaho, historically one of the largest producers of silver in the world. It is said to have produced 360 million ounces of silver since it was found in 1884.

Then, there was a downturn in the world metals production market which led to severe layoffs in the 1980s, and production was limited thereafter. A report by Behre Dolbear & Company in 2007 estimated that the mine still contains “total reserves of 23.48 million ounces of silver (including a 15 percent mine recovery loss deduction) within a larger resource base containing 231.5 million ounces of silver.”

Mr. Roger Edward Tamraz and First Arabian Corporation invested in Kaiser Steel Company which was opened by the industrialist Henry Kaiser in 1942 on thirteen hundred acres. Kaiser, the first integrated mill west of the Rockies, provided steel plate for the West Coast shipbuilding industry. Manufacturers of everything from steel file cabinets to steel buckets to chain-link fences grew up around Fontana, and so did large machine shops that serviced steelmaking equipment. Kaiser Steel Company suffered from cheap steel flowed into California from Japan.