ROSS FLAT GOLDFIELDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2983, 17 May 1911, Page 28

ROSS FLAT GOLDFIELDS.

REPORT BY DIRECTORS. (Fbom Oub Own Coreespondent.j GREYMOUTH, May 12. News is-to hand that-the shareholders of the Ross Flat Goldfield Company are to meet in Wellington next Tuesday to coneider the report of the directors. The report shows that 70,000 shares in Ross Goldfields Reconstructed (Ltd.) at £1 each have been allotted. The sum of 7s 6d per share is payable, equal to £26,250. Of this principal the sum of £7017 has been received, and £6095 has been paid out in meeting the liabilities of the Rose Goldfields (Ltd.) during liquidation and the expenses of the liquidators. There is thus a little over £20,000 available in uncalled capital for the working of the new company. In the interim, since the previous meeting, the reports of special experts have been secured to report on the power plant, pumps, and mining machinery, and they were asked to embody in their reports recommendations for future working. The report shows that to utilise the present planj to drive the existing pumps and machinery (1) that it will cost £4510 to put the generating station pipe lines, transmission line, the Ross substation, and the mine electrical equipment in the minimum state of working efficiency; (2) that an auxiliary stand-by plant to work in conjunction with the present plant will need to be erected at the mine, and, the estimated cost of the latter being. £6840, the board is faced with an immediate expenditure of £11,360. In addition £5786 has to be provided for mine extension, thus making a total anticipated expenditure • of .£17,136. The report goes on to say " Having in view the fact that the adoption of the above scheme involves the retention of the present stationary pumps, and that the mine will be flooded for at least 14 days in the event of these pumps breaking down, and the fact of the auxiliary plant having to be kept under steam all the time, your board decided to ask Mr Gaudin (the expert) for his recommendations. Should the hydro-electric scheme be otherwise utilised his scheme is to utilise a steam engine direct coupled to the pump rods of a bucket pump. . His estimate for this scheme (which allows for two boilers, each capable of carrying the load) is £10,820, and, adding the mine expenses (£5786), brings the total to £16,606. This scheme, of all those placed before it, is the one the board recommends should be adopted by shareholders by reason of its reliability and its efficiency, factors which the board deems of paramount importance in working a deep level gold mine. The annual working costs are approximately the same as would be entailed by the electric cheme. Your board ! considers it would be advisable to sell the existing power plant, and, should it be successful in doing so at anything like the estimate of its value, shareholders would have the new power provided free of cost, and would probably not be called upon to contribute more than Is or 23 per share of additional capital. Your directors regret that the shareholders' money should have been expended on a plant which has proved unreliable and inefficient for its primary object —i.e., the working of the Ross mine, when it is assured that a reliable and efficient steam plant could have been erected for £10,820. Unless the hydro-electric plant can be sold, iri the board's opinion the available capital to be called up is inadequate to test the Ross Flat."