New contract for ironsands biggest yet

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34133, 21 April 1976, Page 1

New contract for ironsands biggest yet

(New Zealand Press Association/ AUCKLAND, April 20. New Zealand Steel. Ltd, has. with six Japanese steel mills, led by the huye Nippon Kokan Kaisha. signed a 10-year ironsands supply contract representing the biggest deal of its kind New Zealand has made. It is worth, over the term. sloom on an f.o.b. basis.

The agreement was | announced by N.K.K. in Tokyo late last night, and was confirmed by| N.Z. Steel today. A New Zealand Steel; spokesman said that, apart i from the product, the agree-! ment would mean the Ta-' haroa mining facilities to handle the ironsand would be increased. A new pipeline to the buoying system would double the loading rate ofl concentrate to 2500 tonnes an hour. The Japanese will build two 110,000-tonne deadweight ships for the trade. They will be the largest iron-ore slurry carriers in the world and more than twice the size of those now carrying ironsand to Japan from Taharoa. To accommodate the new ships, now being designed, and to be built to carry the first concentrate at the start of the contract period in April, 1978. the present buoying system will be moved 600 metres farther from shore. The new deal calls for an! additional 16m tonnes ofl concentrate at a rate of 2.lmi

| tonnes a year, compared with the 1.2 m a vear under the present 10-year supply I contract, which w ill expire | in 1982. i The Tokyo announcement disclosed the import price at |SUSIS a tonne c.i.i far the i first three years of the new j contract, the price for the .succeeding seven years to be negotiated later. The price under the 1972(82 agreement is believed tn Ibe about SlO. Thus New (Zealand Steel has gained an improvement in price. Japan has had to agree to increased prices demanded bv other supplying countries including Australia. However. the Japanese mills’ intention to invest heavily in two special new' ships seems to indicate a hope by Japan that during the 1978-88 contract period another contract for a further period might be negotiated. The New Zealand Steel general manager (Mr J. I I Ingram) said tonight that the new deal was still subI ject to confirmation by his I company board and approval Iby the New Zealand Governiment but those steps must ibc formalities.