IRONSAND DEVELOPMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 March 1922, Page 4

IRONSAND DEVELOPMENT.

NEW PLYMOUTH SCHEME. MR. LEGG ATT INTERVIEWED. POWER THE MAIN ISSUE. A statement setting out the present position of the proposal to establish iron and steel works in New Piymoutn was made yesterday by Mr. Percy Scot! I-eggatt, of the firm of Summeruon anc Son, Darlington, England, who has beer the principal mover in the project te convert Taranaki ironsand to commercial use. It is in furtherance of his aim in this direction that Mr. Leggatt it again visiting New Plymouth. The first aspect touched on, and perhaps the most important, was that of electricity supply. ‘Since my arrival in New Zealand,” said Mr. Leggatt, "J have jjiven very careful attention to procuring the electric power necessary for the establishment of iron and etee) works at New Plymouth. I do not se« an immediate prospect of cheap power from the Government station at Ara* puni, nor do I see any possibilities of securing my minimum power requirements from the New Plymouth municipal supply, I have therefore set my engineer on to the investigation oi power sources in other directions, and have completed all preliminaries in this connection. lam not at liberty at this juncture to divulge the nature of the supply, but estimates provided by the engineer (Major George Stamp Taylor), and corroborated by a Wellington firm of consulting engineers, convince me that that power will be cheaper than any I can derive from hydro-eledtric stations.”

Mr. Leggatt would not go further on this point, but his subsequent remarks may throw some light on the question. He added, parenthetically, that he had never been in favor of hydro-electric development, mainly on account of the j, heavy civil engineering costs and large expenses of transmission and reticulation. EARLY DECISION HOPED FOR. Continuing, Mr. Leggatt remarked that he had been in New Zealand some seven weeks, and although he had not visited New Plymouth officially up till this week, he considered he had not been idle in the interim. “Yesterday,’* he added, “I discussed matters with the New Zealand Iron Ore Smelting aad Manufacturing Company, Ltd., at a board meeting specially convened to hear my proposals. However, at this juncture it would not be fair to make any statements concerning the decisions arrived at. The cardinal principles of my proposals to the New Plymouth company are that the capital originally invested by local shareholders shall be safeguarded, and shall be allowed to participate in the earnings of the company, if, and when, it is placed on a revenue-producing basis. Should the negotiations mature, I shall provide skilled, and technical management and labor, and also the requisite electric power. I find the directors extremely liberal in their ideas, and I do not apprehend any hitches from their aide < which will delay early decision. On one j thing I am assured, that obstructions, if any, will not be placed in my way from anybody in New Plymouth. I have also . eason to believe that Mr. Massey is extremely impressed with the possibilities, and I have no doubt that he will support the enterprise as far as he is able, but I should be very careful to make it clear that I am not asking oi even suggesting that there should be any Government financial support or supervision.” THE RAW MATERIAL.

Recalling the facts that tests were made at Darlington recently, Mr. Leggatt said Professor Harbord had gone into the scientific aspect; the firm had also made investigations, and his point was that in such cases the experiment* should be made more from the point of view of the commercial operations rather than from the scientific aspect. Mr. Leggatt went on to talk interestingly concerning the potentialities of the Taranaki ironsand deposits. “There is undoubtedly,” he said, “a workable quantity of this mineral in readily accessible positions, but there are many technical and commercial difficulties attending its treatment in ordinary ironsmelting practice. Its highly granulated nature prevents any direct treatment- under a blast furnace, while its titanium content precludes any commercial possibility of fluid slag in such a furnace, even if the mineral were bignet ed. The only possible treatment, therefore, is by electric smelting, probably combined with gasification. One curious and interesting result in treaty ing the mineral direct in an furnace is that a semi-steel is produc-’ ed at a stage or two before pig iron. , It may be that it will be more of commercial matter to stop smelting when the mineral is in the semi-steel stage and to cast this into such steel as local demand can assimilate.” “I personally think there is a big future for an enterprise operating on such lines,” said Mr. Leggatt in conclusion.