'Monster' sawmill planned

By PAM GRAHAM

Carter Holt Harvey is considering building the biggest sawmill in the country at either Marsden Point or at its Kinleith pulp and paper mill near Tokoroa.

"We need to invest in a world-scale mill," said chief executive Peter Springford, releasing the company's third-quarter result yesterday.

World-scale means a mill capable of taking in 800,000 tonnes of logs a year and costing between $100 million and $150 million.

"It is a monster," said one industry participant. Springford said serious planning would start in the new year. The company would be in a position to make a decision at the end of the first quarter.

Tony Davies-Colley, the managing director at TDC Sawmills in Whangarei, said Carter Holt Harvey had been "wetting its pants about a big mill in Northland" for years and still had not made a final decision.

He said his company was planning to expand its sawmill to take up to 600,000 tonnes of logs a year, and would make an announcement soon.

He was working through the resource consent process for the expansion.

Mr Davies-Colley said it was impossible to work out how many people new mills would employ because they used the latest technology and it depended on how much processing of logs they did.

Tenon's largest mill at Kawerau takes in 530,000 tonnes.

Carter Holt's plan for a mill at Marsden Point is codenamed Project Bigfoot.

Mr Springford said 800,000 tonnes of logs was "pretty much what we are thinking about", and he did not disagree with analysts' estimates of costs.