Finishing touches to Whangarei's jigsaw puzzle

By PAULA OLIVER

Final touches are being applied to a giant Whangarei jigsaw puzzle that spans the area of five football fields.

Carter Holt Harvey's $130 million laminated veneer lumber (LVL) plant is being equipped, after a rapid construction process which began only last November.

The plant is Carter Holt's first significant greenfield investment in 20 years, and will create 110 jobs.

Project manager Stuart Collins said it was a "real buzz" to see the building, which is made of veneer lumber, closed in.

"It's been like putting together a jigsaw puzzle," he said. "Most of our competitors use steel, but we've used our own product from a plant in Australia, and a lot of nails have gone in to hold it together."

A $26 million press line is now occupying a large amount of space inside the building, and when operating it will produce a slab of laminated timber up to 18m long, and 1.2m wide. Mr Collins said it would be able to produce laminates between 38mm and 105mm thick, a major advantage over many other plants that made thinner timber.

Demand for laminated timber worldwide is extremely strong, particularly in the United States.

Mr Collins said power, water and surrounding roads were complete, and now the challenge was to get the equipment in, and working. A composer, which joins short bits of veneer together, has been sourced from Canada, while other machines have come from the United States and Germany.

Mr Collins said commissioning of the press would begin in October and run until mid-November, when stage one of the project would be complete.

Product will then be made using veneer from Carter Holt's Tokoroa mill, while the overall capacity will increase as further stages of the project are completed.

"We've got the operational staff going through training now, and we've got the biggest working shed in Australasia," he said. "It's a real buzz, the whole thing - it used to be a green paddock and now it's this."

Carter Holt is also investing in the nearby deepwater port extension at Marsden Pt.