Comalco “Firmly Set” On Southland Smelter

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31053, 7 May 1966, Page 16

Comalco “Firmly Set” On Southland Smelter

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, May 6.

The managing-director of the Commonwealth Aluminium Corporation, Mr D. J. Hibberd, said today that the company w as still “firmly set” on establishing a smelter in Southland.

Mr Hibberd met Government Ministers and officials in Wellington today to report on how far Comalco had gone with its planning. He also reported on a conference he had recently with his principals in California, where finance and marketing were discussed.

At the meeting, which took place in the office of the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Marshall, were the Minister of Finance (Mr Lake), the Minister of Works (Mr Allen), the Minister of Labour (Mr Shand), and two local members of

Parliament, the Minister of Science (Mr Taiboys) and the Attorney-General (Mr Hanan).

With them were the Commissioner of Works (Mr P. L. Laing), the general manager of the Electricity Department (Mr E. R. McKenzie), the deputy secretary of Treasury (Mr N. R. Davis), and the secretary of Industries and Commerce (Mr M. J. Moriarty). “Firmly Set”

“We are very firmly set on establishing the industry. We have till December, 1968 to take up our option,” he said. There was still a lot of

technical and organisational planning to be done in cooperation with departmental people in New Zealand, he added. Asked if the rise of costs on the Manapouri power project would affect the price of power to Comalco, he said: “It doesn’t make the job any easier, but it doesn’t mean that the smelter can’t be established.”

Costs Studied

His technical officers and those in New Zealand would study the question of costs over the next few months. The marketing prospects for aluminium appeared quite good, he said. To another question, he said that no thought had yet been given to including aluminium in the terms of the free trade area between Australia and New Zealand. There were too many other things to come before that. The initial output of the smelter would be 100,000 tons a year, Mr Hibberd said. With current world prices for aluminium now at £196 a ton, the smelter’s output would be worth nearly £2O million a year.