NAURU PHOSPHATE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16378, 28 June 1927, Page 10

NAURU PHOSPHATE

BETTER SHIPPING FACILITIES BIG CONTRACT LET Big improvements are-to be made in the equipment for handling, storing and loading phosphates at Nauru island, whence the Dominion’s main supplies id' this important fertiliser are drawn. In a report received by Mr. L. B. Reale, British Trade Commissioner in New Zealand, from the Department, of Overseas Trade, it is announced that, the British Phosphate Commissioners have placed an order with Heavy Simon, lad., conveying engineers, Manchester, lor very extensive ship-loading plant and handling and storage equipment, for dealing with the huge deposits of phosphate of lime on the island of Nauru and on Ocean Island. The extent of the deposits available on thejwo islands is estimated at about. 100,000,000 tons. Nauru, which lies right on the Equator, .70 miles. X'.N.E. of the Solomon Islands and about 2000 miles from Sydney, is only six miles long and tour miles wide, and Ocean island, 100 miles east of Nauru, is even smaller. These islands are of coral limestone format ion, .-; deep strata of which lias been phosphatised hy the action of weather on deposits of guano, and lias been rendered a particularly valuable fertiliser. LOADING DIFFICULTIES The great difficulty experienced has been to load the phosphate to ships, owing ,t,o the fact that there are no harbors. In addition, there is a shelving beach which runs out, several hundred feet and which, even at high tide, is covered by only very shallow water. The ships have to lie off the shore for loading purposes and steam has to be kept up all the time so that they can be moved quickly out to sea in case of a sudden squall. In order to improve the loading facilities and to increase the rate at which the phosphate can he handled, Messrs Simon are to instill up-to-date mechanical loading plant, on both islands. The bulk of the work is to be done at Nauru, where mechanical conveyors are to be installed to bring the phosphates from the quarries to the shore, and a storage building capable of holding 12,000 tons of the valuable material is to be erected. The phosphates will be loaded direct to ships by means of two huge swinging cantilever arms reaching out 200 ft over the sea. Each cantilever will carry a loading-out conveyor and will be capable of bandling EDO tons of phosphate per hour. At Ocean Island a considerable amount of plant is existing, and here a new handling plant and a big loading jetty, 330 ft. long, is to be installed to work in eon junction with the existing mechanical conveyors. The plant on both islands will he electrically driven throughout; this equipment is also included in Messrs Simon’s contract.