Finance “Battle” For Smelter

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31224, 23 November 1966, Page 1

Finance “Battle” For Smelter

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) SYDNEY, November 22. Comalco was “very optimistic” of raising the money needed for its planned aluminium smelter at Bluff, but faced a tough battle, the company’s chairman, Sir Maurice Mawby, said today.

In a telephone interview from .Melbourne, Sir Maurice Mawby said: “We were lucky to get the £42.4 million we needed for the aluminium plant at Gladstone, but since then very serious financial restrictions have been introduced. “We are very anxious to expand as quickly as possible, and are making every effort to raise the finance we need overseas.” Sir Maurice Mawby said Comalco representatives were in California having discussions on possible extensions to the alumina plant at Gladstone, which will serve the proposed smelter at Bluff. The Gladstone plant would produce 600,000 tons of alumina a year by next year, and

the American talks aimed at paving the way for a further expansion, possibly to increase capacity to 900,000 tions. A final decision would not be made until all the interested parties had met at Gladstone on December 14. Partners in the Gladstone project are Kaiser Aluminium and Chemical Corporation of America (52 per cent), Alcan of Canada and Pechiney Company, France (each 20 per cent), and Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (8 per cent). The 600,000-ton basic plant is expected to receive its first charge of bauxite from the vast field at Weipa, Northern Queensland, next February. Sir Maurice Mawby agreed that further expansion of the Gladstone plant would be necessary to supply the Bluff smelter. The smelter’s initial capacity of 100,000 tons a year would require 200,000 tons of alumina.