IRON SMELTING TEST SATISFACTORY

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25933, 13 October 1949, Page 6

IRON SMELTING TEST SATISFACTORY

QUESTION NOW ONE OF ECONOMICS (New Zealand Press Association./ WELLINGTON. October 12. Scientists who had made the recent ironsand smelting tests at Onekaka were completely satisfied with the results, said the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr A. H. Nordmeyer) in the House of Representatives this morning. It had been demonstrated without doubt that by the electric smelting process and by the use of char from Waikato coal New Zealand could produce an iron almost entirely free of titanium, and there was really no technical reason why iron and steel should not be made from New Zealand’s ironsand. The question was now one of economics. said Mr Nordmeyer. To make the quantity of iron and steel NewZealand would need would use 50.000 kilowatts of power, and the Government’s advisers were now considering whether it would be economic to transport the iron concentrates from the North to the South Island where the power potential was much greater. High capital costs at the present time were another factor the Government would have to consider before setting its seal o f approval to this project.