HARBOUR FACILITIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 14, 12 October 1945, Page 5

HARBOUR FACILITIES

USE BY PAPER MILLS

EXPORT OF CARDBOARD

Whether there was anything the Harbour Board could do, that would encourage the Whakatane Paper Mills to make use of the local harbour facilities for the export of their products was answered in the form of a lettelr handed by the General Manager of the Company, Mr Ernest Brown to the at the last meeting of the Board # with the ind'iclatilon thait the Com. pany did not anticipate making any greater use of the harbour facilities than had been .the case in the past. The letter contained a brief account of certain events which occurred shortly before the. mill started up. It stated that then it was anticipated considerable usage of the port might be made particularly in respect of products outwards,, but at that time, the general scheme of the company envisaged the generation ol" hydro-electric power. This scheme did not and another for generating power at thes Mill was substituted. At that time

there was little demand for slack coal in the country, and the. mines were all finding it difficult to dispose of their output of this grade. Consequently the Company was made a very good offer together with an attractive freight rate from the mines to Awa'keri. This was done by the Hon. R. Semple so as to bring this type of slack coal into direct competition as far as cost was concerned with the requested hydro scheme, which could not be granted. One tag, however, was that in consideration of the Railway Department freighting to> the Mill between t>oo and 700 tons- of coal per week, a certain amount of back loading should be. provided, and a condition of the agreement was that the whole of the Auckland proving cial board together with the whole of export qualities would have to be sent to Auckland by rail.

This meant that the only board which could be shipped out of the port was that consigned to Wellington or. the South Island.

In 1939, when the Mill started up,, a special arrangement was made with the Northern Steamship Company and the Watchlin Line. Unfortunately, as production of roard started to increase, so did the outflow of butter through this port, so that on several occasions there was. no space available for the transhipping of the board. . Gradually because of these reasons, and because the difficulties increased as the flush of the butter season was reached the trader drifted way from the Northern Company, so that now the board was all sent by rail. Freighting by rail also saved much additional handling at the Mill and irregular overtime work depending on the state and time of the tide. During the war years, it was also felt that it was safer to transpqrt by rail than by sea, as it was ridiculous to bring goods six or twelve thousand miles across the world, have them arrive in this'* country safely, and then take the chance of losing them as the result of some stray or floating mines off the coast. Thus- for the above it was felt that no greater use of the harbour would be made in future than had been made over the past few years. It was thought also that considerable timber would be produced in this area Avhich might find a market in Australia, in the near future, but here again, the size of the boat engaged in such trade could hardly navigate the Whakatane bar. The letter concluded by saying that the Mill production was approximately 14,000 tons per annum of which a little over one-third went to Auckland and the rest to Wellington. and the South Island. Inwards cargo was mostly pulp of annual tonnage up to 2."500. The Harbour Board that with regard to the above question, the Northern Steamship Company be asked to have a representative confer with the Board, and a representative from the Whakatane Paper Mills, at the first convenient opportunity.