N.Z. Forest Plans Expansion

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31588, 27 January 1968, Page 16

N.Z. Forest Plans Expansion

, (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, January 26. A sl4m expansion programme to increase the production of the Kinleith pulp and paper mills at Tokoroa is expected to double the mills’ export earnings and provide employment for more than 400 additional staff.

The general manager of N.Z. Forest Products, Ltd (Mr R. H. Smythe), said in Auckland this week that his company was launching a two-fold expansion programme at Kinleith this year.

Work had already begun on buildings to house a fifth kraft paper machine, which had a production capacity of 65,000 tons of paper a year. Parts of the machine had already arrived from Britain, Mr Smythe said, and it was to begin production in February, 1969. At the same time the capacity of the company’s kraft pulp mill at Kinleith would be expanded from 150,000 to 200,000 tons a year. This increase in production was expected to commence before the end of 1968, he said. Mr Smythe estimated the total cost of these projects, including the price of the additional logging equipment required to provide increased quantities of pulp wood, would be sl4m. He said the expansion programme would create jobs for

an additional 400 to 500 men at the Kinleith mills, bringing the total Forest Products staff to more than 5000. Plans to develop a cardboard machine at the company’s Whakatane mills and expand wall-board production at its Penrose factory were also being considered, Mr Smythe said. Finance for these projects had been arranged and they would begin as soon as the market situation warranted. Forest Products was steadily building up its export trade, Mr Smythe said. During the latest financial year it had exported sBm worth of pulp, paper, timber and wall-board. Not Held Up The company expected to increase this figure to sllm for the current financial year, and sl6m for the year to March, 1969.

None of his company’s projects had been held up as a result of the country’s economic difficulties or devaluation, Mr Smythe said. He estimated that Forest Products had built 1600 houses for its staff at Tokoroa since 1954, and was still completing them at the rate of about one a week.