Willing To Help

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31086, 15 June 1966, Page 1

Willing To Help

“If we were asked we could certainly help the company to sell the ore,” said Mr Vecker-Flugal last evening. He said his company would be willing to lend Its experience in marketing to the New Zealand company and to make contact with the consuming

industry. “If the people are interested,” he said, “we are willing to help. We are not averse to giving information away, either. If your country prospers, we prosper too.’

Mr Vecker-Flugal, who Is head of his company’s ore and mining division, emphasised that he was in New Zealand on a private visit to Mr E. B. E. Taylor, New Zea-

land's former Ambassador to Japan, and that the Mineral Developments Company had taken advantage of his presence here to discuss their venture with him. He said his company would not be interested in the Moke Creek copper as a consumer,

but only from the point of view of marketing it. He said W. R. Grace Incorporated were experienced miners in small properties like that at Moke Creek, with undetermined potential. “We are not uninterested in doing mining in New Zealand,” he

said, “but we realise that as a foreign company it would be difficult for us." Mr Vecker-Flugal said he did not know enough about the Moke Creek deposit to say much about it, but if the ore

assayed out at 12 per cent copper it was rich ore for a small mine. But it was much too small a quantity to justify refining the copper in New Zealand.

“National pride usually requires that minerals be refined to the highest possible degree before export,” he said, “but national pride should be subordinated to economic expediency. The Moke Creek deposit could not support a smelter.”