Copra Mill

Being Erected by Carpenters in Suva

A COPRA-CRUSHING mill, with a nominal capacity of 7,500 tons per annum, and capable of at once doub ling its capacity, is now being erected in Walu Bay, Suva, by W. R. Carpenter & Co. (Fiji). Ltd., under the active direc tion of Mr. J. Grainger Johnson, the company’s managing director.

Much heavy machinery has been in stalled and more is on the way, and the mill should be in full operation about April of 1946. The company does not plan to produce coconut oil, as oil; it in tends to turn out its first products as vegetable lard and sto'ck fodder. ’Everything has been carefully planned and solidly based on cement floors. A score of operations lead on from one to another.

So far as the Carpenter interests are concerned, there is no guesswork in this enterprise. They base their plans on their long and valuable experience at Pondo (Northern New Britain), where desiccated coconut and coir fibre were regularly manufactured until the Japanese invaded; and at Vancouver and Toronto, in Canada, where the North American branch of the Carpenter group now operates copra-crushing mills.

When the new Suva mill is in complete operation, it may deal with 20.000 tons per annum, which it will buy from Fiji coconut That should have a good, steadying effect on copra prices in the Colony.

Mr. Harold E, Smythe. BE, senior executive engineer in the Public Works Department, Fiji, since 1941, has been promoted to Director of Public Works in British Guiana, and will leave the Colony in September. Mr. Smythe has been a member of the Fiji Civil Service since 1921.