Plan Additions At Portland To Cost Well Over £250,000

Northern Advocate, 26 June 1946, Page 4

Plan Additions At Portland To Cost Well Over £250,000

Application to import machinery to the value of £300.000 has been made to the Ministry of Supply. These facts were disclosed at the annual meeting of the Wilsons (N.Z.) Portland Cement Co. Ltd. in Auckland today. The output of cement showed an increase in the past year but was well below the capacity of the plant, said the chairman of directors (.Mr G. W'.nstone).

Plans prepared in the past year by Mr J. C. Holm, one of the world’s foremost cement engineering experts, to enlarge and modernise the cement works at Portland, are now being examined in London and Copenhagen. The proposed additions were estimated a year ago to cost £250,000, but this figure will now be considerably exceeded, due to the rapid rise in machinery costs.

Shortage of coal was the chief obstacle and supplies were many thousands of tons below requirements throughout the year. SEEK HIGHER ALLOCATION 1 Urgent representations had again been made recently, not only by the company, but by many' users of cement, and it was hoped that a higher priority and larger coal allocation would be made to the cement industry.

Total sales at 138.800 tons were 11,000 tons higher than last year. The highest yearly output of the company had been 149.300 tons for the 12 months ended March, 1944.

Given sufficient coal there was no reason why this figure could not be reached and surpassed.