TASMAN PAPER MILLS

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27639, 21 April 1955, Page 12

TASMAN PAPER MILLS

Raising Of Steam Begun “INITIAL STEP” IN PRODUCTION (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 20. A match was today put to the first steam-raising plant at the Tasman Pulp and Paper Company’s mills at Kawerau. The company’s general manager (Mr M. L. Hobday) told • members of the Auckland Master Printers’ Association tonight that this could be regarded as the initial step in starting up the biggest undertaking yet established in New Zealand. ' Mr Hobday said, that the “startingup process” would continue until probably the end of July or the beginning of August. *’ ; “We will have to operate the machine at 1700 feet of paper a minute to get the rated capacity of 75,000 tons a year,” said Mr Hobday. He recalled that his grandfather, about 1870, had broken the speed record with a figure of 200 feet a minute. “At Kawerau, we will work for 340 days and nights a year, and the men will be on a four-shift basis,” he said. “We have to operate the plant day and night for seven days a week, because of its initial cost.

“You cannot get into mass production on a big scale if you are going to shut down on Friday night and start again on Monday. If a machine like this was started on Monday, you would not be making a profit until Friday. “In this country you are favoured with a somewhat shorter working week than we are accustomed to in England. I want you to understand and sympathise with the paper maker, whose job is never done.”

Mr Hobday told the printers that the Tasman paper would be of a quality equal to anything they were using now. There would be from 500 to 600 persons employed in the mills. He had brought 45 from England, and all the others would be New Zealanders.

Even if the company produced its first paper at the end of July or the beginning of August, it would not necessarily be of the high standard that printers might expect, said Mr Hobday. It might take a couple of weeks or a couple of months to get that quality. There was no suggestion by the Tasman company that printers would have to buy from it, he said. It would be marketing at world prices. There would be no preferences at all. This, he thought, would be hoisting the flag high for New Zealand, as the company would be afraid of no competition.