NITROGEN PRODUCTS

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 205, 25 May 1920, Page 10

NITROGEN PRODUCTS

The Nitrogen Products Committee appointed in June, 191G, to report on. the various methods for producing says: "The pre-war selling price of Chile nitrate in the United Kingdom amounted to about JEC7.2 per metric toil of nitrate nitrogen." Referring to the electric are process the report goes on to say: "Under British conditions with electric energy at. .£3.75 per kilowatt year (reckoning a hundred thousand h.p. development and coal at the basic figure ot 7s. Gd. per ton delivered), the total cost at the. factory for. manufacture of nitrate of lime and sodium nitrate by lliis process would amount to .£58.8 and JC60.3 respectively per metric ton of fixed nitrogen packed for the market. When allowance is made for interest on the capital-cost of chemical plant, etc., these figures show little,or no margin compared with the pre-war marlcct price of combined nitrogen in the form of Chile nitrate. On tlw other hand it appears that nitrate of lime can be manufactured under conditions where cheap water power is available ai a cost at the factory from ,£3' to per metric ton of fixed nitrogen." In other words this represents the cost of producing nitrate of lime containing 13 per cent; of fixed 'nitrogen, by means of cheap yater pewer. such as is obtainable at Milford Sound at £i lCs. 3d. to <£5 14s. sd. per metric lon.' Compare this with ihe piesent retail price in. Wellington _ of is. per pound for Chile nitrate, equivalent t'o about ,£650 per metric ton of fixed nitrogen, a prohibitive price for fanning or market gardening pursuits. Needless to say, coal cannot now be pot in England for 7s. fid., per ton, and in all probability the cost of production would now exceed XlOfl.per ton of fixed nitrogen. The labour conditions in Chile have changed so much during recent years that there is no prospect of aiv return to pre-war prices in future; hence all the more need for developing tlio hydro-electric method- whore water power |can be so easily, harnessed as is possible in the Western Sounds of the South Island. There is an- unlimited demand for nitrogen products; for instance, the. Chile exports exceed two million tons per annum', while the Government of that country reaps a harvest of somo five or six millions sterling from the export duty alone. If all the suitable water powers now running to waste in the Western Sounds of Otago were harnessed for , manufacturing nitrates the Dominion exports would be increased by many millions.