Uranium Jackpot

New Mexico's Ambrosia Lake is a misnamed patch of sunbaked, bone-dry limestone where miners have long thought they smelled uranium. The Santa Fe Railway opened a small strip mine near by in 1950, and Anaconda Co. began to work the richest U.S. uranium mine 20 miles southeast of Ambrosia Lake. But no one struck it rich in Ambrosia Lake until 1955. Then a young (31) Texan named Louis B. Lothmann came in with a $10,000 grubstake, two years of college geology and a hunch on where to look. He teamed up with Septuagenarian Stella Dysart, an oil wildcatter, who knew every corner of the 72-sq.-mi. area from her 30 unsuccessful years of oil hunting. Using Stella's drilling logs of rock formations and a rickety, secondhand rig, Lou Lothmann cut down 360 ft. into a 17-ft.-thick seam of uranium on Dysart land. That started the rush. In the past two years, the region around Ambrosia Lake and the neighboring town of Grants has been found to contain more than 65% of all estimated U.S. uranium reserves. Now the area is being built into the nation's most important uranium-processing center.

Last week Ambrosia Lake got another big lift. Phillips Petroleum Co., which is sinking two mines there, contracted with the Atomic Energy Commission to build a $9,500,000 mill to process 1,725 tons of ore a day into uranium concentrate. Like many another oil producer, Phillips is hedging its bets against the day that uranium becomes a major source of the world's energy.

Dividends. For the prospectors who uncovered its wealth, Ambrosia Lake has already started to issue dividends. Lou Lothmann sold out his original interest in the Dysart land to Rio de Oro Uranium Mines, Inc. for $200,000 in stock. Stella Dysart sold part of her share to Rio de Oro for $300,000 in stock, still holds a 12-c-% royalty interest.

They--and most other prospectors who followed them in staking claims--sold out because Ambrosia Lake's uranium is down too deep (350 ft. to 1,500 ft.) for their own limited resources. They had no trouble finding big-company buyers.

Kermac Nuclear Fuels Corp. (which is 51% owned by Oklahoma Democratic Senator Robert S. Kerr's Kerr-McGee Oil Industries, Inc.) is digging four mines and for $16 million is putting up a 3,300-ton-a-day mill, which will be the biggest in the U.S. Homestake Mining Co. has joined with Sabre-Pinon Corp. to build a 1,500-ton mill, which will go into operation by mid-1958. This December, Homestake also will finish a 750-ton mill, under construction in partnership with J. H. Whitney and Co., White, Weld & Co., San Jacinto Petroleum Corp. and Major General Patrick J. Hurley's United Western Minerals Co.

Search. Altogether, one mine is producing, one is near completion, nine more are being dug and four processing plants are going up. Companies are spending $75 million to burrow, build, and explore in this area. Within a year, Ambrosia Lake will have 7,275 tons of uranium mill capacity a day--about half the U.S. total. But Ambrosia Lake's mining men are plowing up surrounding areas in search of more ore. Floyd Odium's Lisbon Uranium Corp. is prospecting around nearby San Mateo Dome, and Superior Oil Co. (California), has struck ore 30 miles west of the Dysart mine. When atomic power becomes a commercial reality, dusty Ambrosia Lake expects to have a permanent base for its newfound prosperity.

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