“Substantial” Reduction In Price

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31042, 23 April 1966, Page 8

“Substantial” Reduction In Price

When the new fertiliser works of the Dominion Fertiliser Company, Ltd., opens at Seadown next year farmers in South Canterbury should be able to obtain their fertiliser at a substantially reduced price, according to Mr A. D. Talbot, a director of the company, and Mr A. A. Duncan, technical director of the company. They said that the trans port cost of 41s 6d a ton froir Ravensbourne to Seadowr w'ould be eliminated. as

would the present through store charge of 10s a ton, but against this they said that there would be the cost of landing the raw material at the port of Timaru and transporting it about eight miles to Seadown. The raw material comes directly over the wharf at the company’s Ravensbourne works.

Mr Talbot said that the price for super at the new works would be determined under a similar system to that operating at all other works and would be related to raw material costs and production costs pertaining to the par- [ ticular site. Mr Duncan said it was uni economic to produce sulphuric acid in small quantiI ties and to produce acid ecoInomically at Seadown would

involve the installation of a plant that would be operated; at possibly only about a third I of its capacity initially. In! these circumstances it was cheaper to produce acid in I Dunedin and cart it to Sea-[ down. Thus the price of the i fertiliser would not be loaded with the cost of an acid plant that would be idle for a considerable part of the time. With the system that they would be using at Seadown, i with the relatively low ton-! nage of superphosphate be- i ing produced initially, production would be cheaper than from a full-scale works, ’ it was said.