NEW INDUSTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27090, 26 May 1949, Page 8

NEW INDUSTRY

GREEN ISLAND AREA OXYGEN PLANT OFFICIALLY OPENED \ The value of Green Island as a manufacturing area was pointed out by the Deputy Mayor of the Green Island borough, Mr T. McAhan, when speaking at the official opening of the Ac«tone Illuminating and Welding Com,pany’s new oxygen-producing plant and building near Burnside yesterday afternoon. Mr A. S. Falconer, the president of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the Otago Development Council, referred to the enterprise of the company in establishing a factory at Burnside. He remarked on the fact that there were still industrial men in the community who, in spite of restrictive legislation, were prepared to find capital to set up manufacturing establishments. The manager of the company, Mr H, M. Thomson, informed a large\and representative gathering of business men and civic departmental heads that the new plant was designed to produce oxygen by the liquid air process. Air was purified, compressed, expanded, and converted to liquid, after which it was distilled into nitrogen and oxygen. The oxygen resulting from the process was 99.5 per cent. pure. The nitrogen, for which little use was found in New Zealand, was liberated. The oxygen was then stored before being put into bottles at a pressure of 18001 b to the square inch. The speaker added that the new building provided space?’ for the company’s own Diesel plant. It was also equipped with staff amenities of which the company was proud. The Deputy Mayor of Dunedin, Cr L. M. Wright, congratulated the company on behalf of the City Council, as did the president, Mr T. G. Tomkins, on behalf of the Otago-Southland Manufacturers’ Association. The general manager of the company, Mr C. D. Edmundson, of Napier, said that the company had three acres of ground around the building, and the present factory was the forerunner of other buildings to be erected on the site.