Industry

“Island Kerosene”

Home of New Madang Industry

By Joan Stevens

OFF Madang township, opposite the wharves, lies a small island once named Beliau. The natives have rechristened it Island Kerosene (straight English “Kerosene Island.”) One story about its renaming is that during the war, kerosene was buried there; and another is that since, in recent years, big busi ness has adopted the island, the natives called it Island Kerosene because of the extensive use of oils and spirits in the running of the machinery there.

Perhaps the legpullers know other yarns but those are the two that I was told.

From Beliau’s beaches a fine view of Madang can be had with the 12,000-feet high Finisterre Ranges in the background.

But the whole island now is taken up by a dessicated coconut factory and it has become a busy industrial centre employ ing a great many natives and a small staff of white men. Madang district is very suitable for growing coconuts and the island is in a fine position for receiving nuts for processing. It is one of W. R.

Carpenter and Co’s, interests, the factory being fed by numerous plantations that are owned by the company as well as by various other estates.

The nuts are brought in in bags, un loaded by natives and carried ashore to the factory where they are husked, dried and cleaned. Inside, under the super vision of an expert engineer, machines clicketty clack and furnaces extract, by drying, the numerous oils in the coconut.

Power goes to the machinery by the com pany’s own power plant—two large diesel engines, capable of supplying electricity to a good-sized country town. They could supply the whole of Madang township but there is no bridge from the island to the Mainland, the span is too wide for over head wires, and if submarine cables (which are unprocurable anyway) were used, they would be cut to pieces by the beautiful coral gardens that abound in the waters of the area.

After the nuts are husked, the coarse outer fibre goes to the boilers for fuel, while the white meat goes forward for processing. Within the factory water flows constantly into a long trough and here natives wash the coconuts. Others take away waste ready for the second group who cut the meat into rough pieces for the machine that minces the coconut into the shredded pieces we know as desiccated coconut. The factory is cool and provides pleasant working conditions.

From this point, machinery carries the shredded stuff into the large furnaces where heat extracts the oils and bleaches the coconut white. During this process constant inspection is necessary to pre vent over exposure to the fire.

Finally, the finished coconut is carried on conveyer belts to the sifters and from there into the waiting vats for cooling.

MEANWHILE, at the end of the huge shed, a gang of natives appears to * be enjoying a game of paper cutting.

This is the department responsible for cutting out cartons stamped in a pattern, in much the same way a child makes a paper basket. Sharp knives make the in cision and then the'boxes are folded into 18 in. squares. Into these packages goes the now processed desiccated coconut.

At present, no by-products are handled, but it is hoped eventually to install machinery for extracting coconut oil, and

for making copha butter and other pro ducts. But this is for the future.

When the company bought this tropical island they got with it three Japanese ships wrecked on the foreshore. On the seabed is one not worth redeeming, but the tug, Hotumaru, after months of work patching holes in the boiler, at last was sufficiently seaworthy to make the trip South. The third is now being re claimed and may be refloated.

MOST of the homes of the European employees on Island Kerosene are built round the foreshore overlook ing the passage between Kranket Island and the mainland. Although the homes are “temporary” the women have made them attracfve and have planted gar dens. Connection with the town is by launch, and like the town people, the islanders depend on rainwater and tanks for their water supply. As Madang rain fall is heavy this presents few problems.

A factory set on a beautiful tropical island deserves a prettier name than Kerosene, but that is its nickname, and it seems to stick.