SUPERPHOSPHATE SUPPLIES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27074, 24 June 1953, Page 6

SUPERPHOSPHATE SUPPLIES

Alternative Methods Of Production

MINISTER URGES ADOPTION (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 23. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr K. J. Holyoake) said today that new superphosphate works would have to be established that did not make use of crude sulphur. The best authorities held that the world supply of sulphur would last for only 15 years. Mr Holyoake was addressing the annual conference of the Royal Agricultural Society of New Zealand. The need was for pyrites-burning plants and possibly one plant to make double superphosphate by the fusion process, Mr Holyoake said. The Cabinet had last week authorised the expenditure of £4500 to secure information about processes other than those requiring the use of elemental sulphur. The producer boards were subsidising this amount £ for £. The information would be sought from a Scottish firm. Mr Holyoake said the four companies which operated the eight existing works were hot keen on branching

out into new processes and new works. All farmers’ organisations would have to give serious thought to what was to be done. “Are we going to spend some of our income or —individual savings or pool money—on pyrites plants?” he asked. “Are we going to build a double superphosphate plant? We are approaching the end of an era in conventional methods. lam warning farmers: it is on their own heads.” Mr Holyoake said he hoped some action would be taken within the next 12 months. When the existing superphosphate

companies had been established in the 1920’s there had been cut-throat competition among them, Mr Holyoake said. But there did not appear to be much competition today. It seemed that the companies must have some agreement among themselves, and they made joint applications for prices. They all used crude sulphur. Australian Offer of Pyrites

This year, said Mr Holyoake, New Zealand was asking the American sulphur-exporting companies for 125,000 tons to enable some stockpiling to be carried out. But it seemed unlikely that the amount requested would be obtained. Australia was offering supplies of high-grade pyrites to New Zealand. These supplies contained about 50 per cent, of sulphur, but nothing had yet ’been done about the offer.

“I suppose that is because no one has been very much concerned about the position lately,” said the Minister. “I have been pushing the hardest of the lot.” The Minister said a works to manufacture double superphosphate would need a great deal of electric power, and could probably be established only in the South Island for that reason. A plant to make 100,000 tons a year (equivalent to 250,000 tons of ordinary straight superphosphate) would cost about £3,000,000. A byproduct would be sulphate of ammonia, which would be produced at the rate of more than 30,000 tons a year. Commenting afterwards on Mr Holyoake’s remarks, the president of the society (Mr J. S. Marshall, of Invercargill) said the situation, as revealed by the Minister, was alarming to a degree. Any future shortage in the supply of superphosphate would curtail the Dominion’s farm production.