Europe

N. Caledonia Nickel for Europe And Cheap Electricity for Noumea

From Our Own Correspondent

Noumea, Feb, 9.

THE important role that New Caledonian nickel may play in the reconstruction of Western Europe was indicated to me this week by Monsieur Rapadzie, manager of the Nickel Company here. He said that, although the contract under which the Colony has, since 1940, furnished all its nickel output, save the require ments of Australian industry, to the United States came to an end on December 31 last, there is a great probability that all the 1945 production will still ga to America, where it will be made available to the Governments of war-torn France, Belgium, Holland and Italy.

As the uses of nickel in times of peace are as important as its wartime uses, the demand for Caledonian nickel is not likely to fall. In the last two or three years, with American technical improvements, Noumea smelters have maintained their production at almost the pre-war level, two furnaces doing as much work as three furnaces previously.

M. Rapadzie revealed that when a Japanese invasion of this island was ex pected early in 1942, Australian com mandos had everything prepared, in co operation with the company’s staff, to destroy vital parts of the Point Doniambo smelters, and to hide other parts.

At the company’s Yate smelters at the extreme point of the south-east coast, arrangements were made to dismantle and hide the regulators of the hydro electric works, which were a Swiss patent irreplaceable by the Japanese, and this could also have been done with a minimum of delay. mHE Nickel Co. has now in hand an J. important plan which will lower the cost of electricity in the township of Noumea to one-quarter or one-fifth of its present high price of 5 frs. the kilowatt.

This is a' high figure by Australian or New Zealand standards —Sydney electricity costs the householder only about one tenth of the Noumea charge—and a cheaper supply will be a boon to small industrialists and workshops in this backward port, as well as for household use and badly needed refrigeration. Port installations should also benefit. The current will be brought 37 miles from Yate, where the works have been closed

down since electrolytic smelting ceased there in 1932. This was at the time of a nickel slump, when the Thio smelters were also closed and all Caledonian smelting concentrated at Noumea. The cost of the scheme is in the region of 40,000,000 francs (£250,000), and the line is expected to be through by about July, 1946.

The route has recently been surveyed by an Australian engineer, Mr. Carter, in conjunction with the company’s engineers, and will cross the solid ironstone Plaine des Lacs, about the most barren region of New Caledonia, and then go underneath the new road constructed by French military forces to the La Coulee River and the capital. The copper wire has

been ordered in the USA and the trans formers, switches and piles are likely to come from Australia.

The industry, says M. Rapadzie, is organising to produce more; also to refine nickel to 99.5 per cent, pure instead of having this done in Europe as formerly (matte of 78 per cent, nickel being sent there from the Noumea smelters). This will be possible because electrolysis will be able to supplement the present blast furnace smelting. The average power available from Yate was given me as 8,000 kilowatts per month, the maximum being 14,000 kilowatts in the height of the rainy season, falling to perhaps 3,000 in months of low rain such as October - November.