Japan Seeks Ironsands

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32393, 4 September 1970, Page 24

Japan Seeks Ironsands

(New Zealand Press Association) • HAMILTON, September 3. Japanese steel interests may buy the entire Taharoa ironsand deposit on Waikato’s west coast, south of Kawhia.

The leader of an eightman Japanese steel mission which visited the deposits yesterday, Mr M. Mitsui, hinted at this in a speech to the Maori ironsand owners.

He said the conditional 11year contract at present being negotiated with New Zealand Steel, Ltd, could be extended “eternally.”

The present provisional contract involves the supply of 10 million tons of ironsand concentrate to Japanese steel companies. The Taharoa deposits contain an estimated 300 million tons of concentrate. The ironsand is the most pure found in New Zealand.

The Japanese visited Kawhia before looking at the deposits, and three shipping masters, included in the mission, met Captain A. E. Langdon, who commands Kawhia’s only trawler. They discussed local shipping conditions and navigations of the dangerous Kawhia harbour bar. The mission was accompanied by Commander B. Frankel, of the Imodco Corporation, Los Angeles, the world’s experts on offshore loading. With a New Zealand civil engineering firm, McConnellDowell, Imodco is designing an offshore loading buoy for New Zealand Steel at Taharoa.

The present intention is to pump the ironsand concentrate as a slurry to ships moored at the buoy. The buoy will be a mile and a quarter off the Taharoa coast Huge, 50,000-ton, bulk carriers will moor to this and much of yesterday’s discussion was on how to manoeuvre the cumbersome vessels in the unpredictable west coast weather.

At Taharoa the Japanese mission was greeted by local Maoris, most of whom had travelled from remote areas on horseback. The Japanese were taken in a four-wheel-drive truck over the ironsand deposits, which are six miles long and a mile wide. New Zealand Steel representatives, including the company’s mining and developing manager (Mr J. W. Ridley)

pointed out the likely site for the concentrate pumping station, on a flat next to the Wainui Stream.

A dredge and concentration plant will move up and down the stream, gradually working over the deposit. The dredge will float on a pond created by damming the water. Additional water will be pumped from Lake Taharoa nearby to increase the size of the pond.