Power House Smelting Plant Will Cost £77m

Press, Volume C, Issue 29624, 21 September 1961, Page 18

Power House Smelting Plant Will Cost £77m

The provision of a power i house at Lake Manapouri and an aluminium-smelting plant near Invercargill would involve a capital outlay of about £77m. said Mr C. E. Gardner, chief power engineer for Comalco, Ltd., in an address to the annual conference of the Secretaries’ Association of the Electrical Supply Authorities’ Association yesterday. Mr Gardner said the plans announced by Comalco anticipated that aluminium would be produced at the smelting factory by 1966 and that when the smelter was in full production the plant would be capable of producing 120,090 long tons of aluminium a year. The hydro-electric power at Lakes Manapouri and Te Anau had proved to be the cheapest and most satisfactory source of power. The power house at Lake Manapouri would be in the west arm of the lake and situated 750 ft underground. Water from the lake would go down a vertical shaft and then be diverted into the power house by means of intake pressure shafts. Four Generators Ninety to 100 ft high, 50ft wide and 350 ft long, the power house would contain four generators, said Mr Gardner. Each generator would be able to produce 100,000 kilowatts. The overflow from the turbines would be taken westward along a horizontal tunnel six miles and a half long to the head of Deep Cove, in Doubtful Sound.

“The magnitude of the operations needed to produce aluminium can be judged from the outlay of £77 million I mentioned before. However, added to that figure is another £3om which will be necessary to increase the capacity of the alumina smelting plant in Weipa, Queensland, to provide the raw materials for the smelting plant in Invercargill,” said Mr Gardner.

The aluminium plant in New Zealand would provide the country with a major secondary industry, and many satellite industries would appear. At the start

■of the company's operations i there would be 1000 permanf ent employees. Also the ! company would pay almost i £6m in tax a year to the New ' Zealand Government. “Markets Assured” ‘‘The world demand for 1 aluminium is expected to ■ double in the next 10 years and the Invercargill smelter is assured of markets to help to meet the expected deficiency in production as demand begins to exceed supply,” said Mr Gardner. The two logical market areas for New Zealand were ' India and South-east Asia, which were deficient in aluminium. Also, New Zealand aluminium could find markets in Europe. The preliminary scheme for the production of hydroelectric power had been found perfectly feasible from an engineering point. The ultimate development to the ! stage where 600 megawatts could be produced would be accomplished by the building of a 117 ft dam a short distance down the Wairau river from Lake Manapouri, said Mr Gardner. '