PLAN TO DEVELOP N.Z. MINERALS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30389, 13 March 1964, Page 14

PLAN TO DEVELOP N.Z. MINERALS

Quick Start Urged In Committee’s Report

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, March 12. A major programme of investigation and development of New Zealand’s minerals, to be started as quickly as possible, has been recommended to the Government in the first report of the Mineral Resources Committee.

The committee, set up in November, 1962, by the Minister in charge of Scientific and Industrial Development, says that New Zealand has not done anything like the amount of work necessary to make any reliable assessment of its mineral future.

If this assessment is to be made reasonably quickly, it says, additional resources of men and equipment will have to be provided. It recommends an increased expenditure of £40,000 in 196465, rising to £129,000 in 1967-68. Among specific recommendations, the report suggests that: The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research should be provided with extra staff and finance specifically to implement the programme for research on minerals: An additional annual amount of at least £lO,OOO should be voted to the Mines Department, for assistance in exploration and development: Favourable consideration should be given to making special grants to the New Zealand universities, for research on specific projects such as smokeless fuels, briquetting and carbon electrodes for aluminium smelting: Research into coal, cement and concrete should be increased by the establishment of research associations or similar organisations. Work over the last three or

four years, particularly, has highlighted New Zealand’s lack of basic background information on mineral resources, says the committee. “The need to tackle immediate problems almost on an emergency basis, and the shortage of manpower and equipment, has left little opportunity for examining systematically the potential value of some of the newer exploration techniques,” it says. Past efforts did not mean that further and more intensive searching was unwarranted. .“The future investigation and development of New Zealand’s mineral resources will involve four activities which must, for scientific and economic reasons, be conducted simultaneously,” the report says. Among immediate shortterm projects, the first of the activities, the committee recommends increased geological, geophysical and geochemical assistance to oil prospecting companies; the search for suitable coal, limestone and other minerals for the proposed steel industry; and the utilisation of slack coals, which at 'present are stockpiled. In the second activity, nation-wide surveys of important minerals, the committee recommends that a thorough survey of New Zealand’s limestone deposits be carried out in the next five years. Under the third category, surveys of potentially metal-

liferous regions, it suggests that broad surveys of the Nelson-Buller, Northland, Westland, West Otago-Fiord-land and Hauraki regions, using modern techniques, should be carried out in the next five years. Detailed surveys should also be made of the most encouraging localities, says the, committee. Long-term projects recommended include increased research on the properties and utilisation of coal, and cement and concrete. Similar work should be done with sands and aggregates used for construction and roadmaking, the committee recommends. “The committee would not claim that New Zealand has vast reserves of mineral wealth,” says the report. "That entrancing prospect as yet lacks firm foundation. But it does claim that work in the last few years gives reason to believe that New Zealand could well possess more diverse mineral wealth than is acknowledged.” The committee comprises Professor S. R. Siemon, professor of chemical engineering at Canterbury University; Mr K. E. Seal, of Amalgamated Brick and Pipe Company. Auckland; Professor G. J. Williams, dean of the faculty of technology at Otago University; Dr. I. K. Walker, director of the Dominion Laboratory; Mr R. W. Willett, director of the Geological Survey; Dr. E. I. Robertson, director of the Geophysics Division; Mr I. D. Dick, representing the D.5.1.R.; Mr R. A. Simpson, representing the Commissioner of Works; the Undersecretary of Mines (Mr P. M. Outhwaite); and Mr G. L. Easterbrook-Smith, representing the Department of Industries and Commerce.