POWER FOR COMALCO

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30092, 28 March 1963, Page 16

POWER FOR COMALCO

Benmore “Not Suitable” (From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, March 27. At least four good reasons existed why electric power from Benmore would not suit the requirements of Comalco Industries, Proprietary. Ltd., for aluminium smelting, said the Minister of Justice and member for Invercargill (Mr Hanan) today. He was commenting on criticism made by the former Minister of Works and Electricity in the Labour Government, Mr H. Watt. Speaking in Invercargill recently. Mr Watt said the present Government should have offered power to Comalco from Benmore and should not have committed itself to the Cook Strait cable. Mr Hanan’s “four good reasons” are: (1) The Benmore power project, when completed, will produce 540,000 kilowatts at a 45 per cent, load factor. This is equivalent to only 240.000 kilowatts of continuous power, the kind of power required by an aluminium smelter. This is substantially less than half of Comalco's requirements. (2) Power from Benmore would have to be heavily subsidised by the taxpayer for Comalco to get it cheap enough for the production of aluminium for sale in world markets <3) If made available to Comalco for actual cost it would be too expensive for Comalco to establish the aluminium industry <4) All power planning for the future is on the basis of a large amount of Benmore power being available for most of the year for the North Island grid and therefore it could not be made available to Comalco. “Any one of the above four facts is an adequate reason for Mr Watt’s suggestion being impracticable.” said Mr Hanan,

Earthquake Congress. Auckland will be host to the third world conference on earthquake engineering, to be held in January. 1965. under the auspices of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering.—(P.A.)