N.Z. Finn’s 500,000 Tons Of Steel

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32031, 4 July 1969, Page 18

N.Z. Finn’s 500,000 Tons Of Steel

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, July 3.

Pacific Steel, Ltd, made its half-millionth ton of steel at its Favona Road works just after 1 p.m. today. The company estimates that it has saved §3om in overseas exchange since it began seven years ago.

Each of the company’s 500 employees will be given one of the new Government premium bonds to celebrate the occasion.

The entire production was achieved with the company’s single 40-ton arc furnace. The output rose from 25,000 tons in the year ended March 31, 1963, to 88,500 tons in the year ended March 31 last Since 1967, Pacific Steel has exported a small part of

its output, 2000 tons having been sent overseas in the best year.

In the last seven years, the company has used 545,000 tons of scrap, all from local sources.

Scrap is now available at the rate of 93,000 tons yearly. In the last March year, Pacific Steel rolled 80,121 tons of finished merchant bar products. This represented 15 per cent of the steel demand in the country. The company’s range of products has been expanded from the original reinforcing rods to engineering rounds, angles, flats and channels. All the raw materials used are local and the over-all local content is 89 per cent. Pacific Steel is extending its rolling capacity to 300,000 tons a year with the installation of an $8.5 million wire rod mill. The food for this will come from the Glenbrook mill of New Zealand Steel, Ltd. However, Pacific Steel Will also continue to make steel from scrap.