Fletcher Group’s Plans For N.Z. Steel Industry

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28700, 25 September 1958, Page 12

Fletcher Group’s Plans For N.Z. Steel Industry

(Neto Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, September 24. The first public announcement of a detailed plan to establish an iron and steel industry in New Zealand which has been placed before the Government by the Fletcher group, in association with the Kaiser Industrial Corporation of America, will be made by the Fletcher company in Wellington tomorrow morning.

The other organisation which has a proposal before the Government is the New Zealand Development Corporation.

Both concerns have submitted evidence to an inter-departmental committee set up by the Government.

The recommendations of the committee have not yet been received by the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Holloway). The chairman of the committee (Mr L. A. Atkinson) said today that the report had been delayed so that the committee could hear evidence from Dr. T. P. Colclough, an English expert brought to New Zealand to advise the Fletcher group. Dr. Colclough was in New Zealand 19 years ago when he reported on the Onekaka scheme. Mr Atkinson said he could give no indication when the report would be completed. “It is a massive piece of work as the committee is endeavouring to trace the whole history of iron and steel proposals and it will take some time to tidy it up,” he said.

The Fletcher group will hold a press conference in Wellington tomorrow morning at which Dr. Colclough will be present. The group proposes to use Taranaki ironsands and it is understood to favour Dunedin as the site for

its smelting works although Auckland has also been considered.

Little has been made public about the proposals of the Fletcher group, but they are understood to cover two separate schemes.

The first would be to begin with an annual production of 123,000 tons rising jo 303,000 tons by 1972. This would involve a company with a capital of £32.4 million. The second proposal envisages an initial production of 239,000 tons rising to 600,000 tons by 1972 and involves a capital of £53.6 million. At one stage, the Fletcher group estimated that its proposals would result in an annual saving in overseas exchange of between £8 million arid £9 million.

It is likely that much of the capital for the project will be raised in New Zealand and the balance will be sought overseas.