IRON ORE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 28 April 1937, Page 3

IRON ORE

PRODUCTION AT YAMPI JJY AMERICAN COMPANY DARWIN. 15th April. The production of iron ore from the vast deposits at Koolan Island, Yampi Sound, will be undertaken by an American company, which will commence the installation of machinery on Ist August. The company expects to produce 1.000.000 tons annually, but it will be two years before production is in full swing.

Mr L. C. Moore, chief mechanical engineer of John A. Savage and Company. of Duluth. Minnesota, arrived here yesterday by the Qantas ’plane from Singapore. He will be in charge of the installation of machinery and is visiting Australia to make a preliminary survey. He is fllying to Derby, and will spend a few days at Koolan before visiting Perth and the eastern States, where he will make arrangements tor the machinery. John A. Savage, he said, would mine ore for H. A. Brassert and Co., Ltd., an English company which owns iron ore leases at Koolan. At the present time an Australian company was carrying out drilling operations to determine the exact extent of the deposits. EMPLOYMENT FOR 200 “It will be about two years before production is in full swing,” said Mr Moore, “and during that period we will employ about 200 men. mostly Australians. A few technical engineers will be brought from America. As soon as the machinery is installed, the number of employees will probably be more. We estimate that production should bo about 1.000.000 tons a year. Brassert's will handle the disposal ot the ore, I understand, and 1 guess Japan will get the bulk of it. Mr John Savage, president of the Savage Company, accompanied Mr Moore to Singapore, and then proceeden to England, where he will confer with Brassert’s. He will return to Duluth and visit Koolan later in the year Mr Moore is making a hurried prelimintry survey, and he will sail from Sydney by the Monterey on 28th April The Savage Company, he said, was a powerful American mining corporation, which has been mining iron ore in the Lake Superior country for the past 20 years ASSET IN EMERGENCY This development and exploitation o' the Koolan deposits recalls the survey of Australia’s resources some time ago by the Defence Department, and the view was expressed that there was no need to restrict the export of Yampi ore to foreign countries. The department favoured the development of Koolan in peace time to ensure that the plant to be installed would be available in a time of national emergency SuDport is lent to Mr Moore’s statement that the bulk of the ore produced would be shipped to Japan by the recent visit to Darwin of Mr Sueo Sakaizumi, sub-manager of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, who travelled to Yampi. which is GOO miles from Darwin, to investigate the harbour facilities. When production commenced, he said, his company would probably send a line of freighters to ship the ore direct to Japan. Yampi, he added, would supply the bulk of Japan’s ore requirements in the future. “A MATTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA” Federal Ministers stated last night that they could give no information about the plans for the working of the Koolan Island iren ore deposits. The matter, they said, was one for the Government of Western Australia. It was officially stated recently that an Australian operating company had been formed by H. A. Brasserts and Co., Ltd., which owns the Koolan Island leases, the capital for the operating company being provided by the Nippon Mining Company of Tokyo, which would take the whole of the output.