Plant nearly read

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32541, 26 February 1971, Page 3

Plant nearly read

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, Feb. 25. Within a fortnight a new export industry based on timber products will be in full operation in the Nelson area.

The $500,000 wood-chip production plant set up by H. Baigent and Sons, Ltd, at Brookside, is now at the tune-up stage prior to the commencement of production.

The formal opening will be in a month’s time, according to the firm’s general manager (Mr L. Hunter), who said that the official ceremony would not take place until the plant was fully adjusted and operational.

The anticipated annual volume of the plant output will be about 50,000 tons of dry wood fibre, about half of which will be radiata pine and the rest beech. The f.o.b. value of this will be sl.2m a year. Each shipload of chips sent to Japan will

have an f.o.b. value of about $200,000. The total cost of the operation so far has included $lBO,OOO for extraction plant and transport; $250,000 for the chipper plant, mobile loaders and other gear, and $50,000 for the weighbridge and chip transporter. Trade growth The growth of Baigents’ trade with Japan has been one of the brightest aspects of New Zealand’s export drive. During the last 15 months the volume of logs exported to Japan has increased five-fold. In addition, Baigents supply more than 15 per cent of radiata pine exported to Australia. All the radiata chip exports from the new enterprise will come from present forest and sawmill waste.

The firm’s annual export earnings are now expected to total s3m, including sl.2m from log exports to Japan; a similar amount from chip exports to Japan, and $400,000 from timber exports to Australia. For the year ending April, 1967, the firm’s earnings from export were $170,184.

Baigents is the largest privately-owned timber firm ■ in New Zealand. The firm, I which employs a staff of : more than 400, has been pro- • ducing timber in the Nelson : area since 1842. In a highlyI diversified operation, the firm i produces 19,000,000 super feet of sawn timber annually, operates its own housing division, and sells pre-cut homes and builder’s hardware. Among the firm’s holdings are 35,000 acres of pine forests within 30 miles of Port Nelson. Apart from this, the firm has cutting rights over 86,000 acres of native beech, rimu and white pine forests in the Nelson area. Some 1200 acres of new forest is planted annually.