Pacific Commerce and Produce

Big Noumea Hotel Plan

Following a report in PIU in larch of the luxury hotel lanned for Noumea, Mr. C. V. barter, a director of the Aus alian interests in the hotel, has

iven some more details.

HHE estimated cost of the flve- L floor project will be £354,000. (not £200,000, as stated). The ame of the hotel will be Hotel des [ers du Sud (South Seas Hotel) id it is being formed in Noumea ith a capital of £500,000 (100,000,000 francs).

The scheme, so far, has received ivourable support from the Govern ent, Mr. Carter says, and it will i the first such project submitted the authorities in Paris.

The hotel will be built overlook g the Bay de Citron and every om will have a balcony. A swim g pool and club bar will be pro ved and also a separate space for ivate functions.

A nightclub to accommodate 500 ople will be incorporated. There 11 be all facilities for meals and 24-hour room service will be pro led.

The residential section of the tel will contain 96 bedrooms, each th two lounge-type beds which 11 be converted to lounges when t in use as beds.

Fhe night club and dining room 11 be air conditioned. Mr. Carter it was hoped work would com mce on the project no later than iy.

.ustralian Trade

lission for Pacific

PONSORED by the Australian Junior Chambers of Commerce, a trade mission comprising of to 20 businessmen, bankers and lorters will visit the South cific in August. This is the ssion about which PIM reported

t December (p. 21).

Tie mission will investigate or isolidate markets for Australian mary and secondary products, tecent surveys by trade com isioners and businessmen have icated that, while Australia en s a substantial trade in the mds, the volume could be bi ased appreciably by greater local

publicity in the Territories and by

packaging and designing specially

to catch the South Seas market.

The mission will visit New Cale

donia and Fiji, before dividing into

groups to visit Tonga, Tahiti, American Samoa and other centres.

Australia now holds about 18 per cent, of the £4O million import trade in the Territories the mission will visit.

Revaluation of the

Netherlands NG Guilder

Of interest to Australian trading firms having business dealings with Netherlands New Guinea was the announcement on March 6 that the Dutch Government had revalued the Netherlands guilder by 4.74 per cent. This move has altered the old exchange rate of approximately BMs guilders to the £ 1 Australian to a new working quotation of approximately 8 guilders to £AI.

The official unit in Netherlands New Guinea is called the New Guinea Guilder, and it is on a par with the Netherlands guilder. It is divided into 100 cents.

Coins in NNG are both bronze and nickel—the lowest denomination being 1/100 guilder or one cent (bronze), then rising to 5 cents (bronze), 10 cents (nickel), and 25 cents (nickel). Notes are in values of guilders as follows: 1, 2Vfe 5, 10, 25, 100, and 500.

Often the guilder is referred to by its alternative name of “florin”—but there is no difference in value, of course.

PI Mines (Misima) May

Take a Partner

It is now apparent that the Misima goldfield of Pacific Island Mines Ltd. will constitute “four or five major lodes in which the aggregate tonnage will prove to be very large”, shareholders were told at the third annual general meeting in Sydney on March 16.

A large proportion of this tonnage would be amenable to open cut operation, according to a report made by Mr. A. G.

Palmer, consulting mining engineer.

If the deposits are to be investigated as fully as warranted it might be neces sary for the company to expand its opera tions and, perhaps, introduce a partner to effect this expansion. Meanwhile, the company will concentrate on increasing pilot plant production to 50 tons per day, with a resultant Increase in gold pro duction, whilst at the same time continu ing with a vigorous programme of pros pecting, necessary for the continued holding of its Exclusive Prospecting Licence.

The company’s pilot plant which com

menced mining in February is a simple one comprising an Impact crusher, blanket strakes, amalgam barrel and pump unit; but it is proving an effective tool for the testing of the softer lode types and country rock.

Preliminary clearing, grading and drainage of an airstrip at Misima has been commenced with voluntary native labour, but would take two years to com plete by these methods. An airstrip could be built in three to four months at a cost of £lO,OOO using mechanical equip ment and methods of financing this work are under review, both by the company and the P-NG Administration.

Fall in BSIP Copra

Production Last Year

There was a fall of eight and half per cent, in the BSIP’s copra production last financial year, according to figures released in Honiara. More than 20,000 tons were produced last year, when prices declined rapidly from March onwards Average price paid by the Copra Board for first grade copra during the year was £ A74/18/6. The quality was maintained, according to London, but freight rates to London went up from Stg. £8 a ton to £B/15/- a ton.

March prices were, first grade £6O - grade £5B/10/-; third grade £56/10/-. (Over)

NNG's Oil Fields

Are "Drying Up"

Because it had lost £50,000,000 the Netherlands New Guinea Petroleum Co. is preparing to leave the Territory. Dr. H.

H. Brons, head of the company, said in March that the existing wells were “drying up” and production was declining by 3 per cent, a month.

At one time, NNGP had 90 producing wells in Netherlands New Guinea. It has exported oil worth £ 10,000,000 —but it has spent £60,000,000 to get it.

One field which was producing 750 tons a day has dropped to 50 tons and another producing 1,200 tons has dropped to 600. Production will be tapered off gradually and the oil fields will continue steadily declining production for another five years.

The company (owned by the Royal Dutch Shell Group, Standard Vacuum and Caltex) has already sold many of its installations in the Sorong area, in cluding a hospital, wharves, and the com pany telephone system, to the Govern ment.

Rubber-lands 7 Profit Goes Higher

The profit made by Rubberlands Ltd. (one of a group of Papuan plantation companies controlled by Steamships Trad ing Company) in the year ended December 31, was £20,832, which was substantially higher than that of the previous year.

The estate’s production of 417,930 pounds of dry rubber was over 37,000 pounds more than in 1959, while the average price received, 40.7 per pound, was 7d per pound better than 1959.

The company brought forward £12,223 in P/L Account in 1960, added £20,832 profit for 1960, pays out un changed dividend at the rate of 10 per cent, (on an issued capital of £100,000), and carries forward £18,056.

Naturally, the directors have nothing to complain about—except a decrease in re cent months, in the world price of rubber.

They have £20,000 in a general reserve, and a balance of £lB,OOO of unappro priated funds in the P/L Account.

The directors are Messrs. E. V. Crisp, W. B. Molloy, L. A. Willis, H. D. Under wood, G. M. Cadden and R. J. Paul.

Which is Best Cook Is. Shell?

The recent announcement that Manihiki lagoon will be re-opened this year for shell-fishing has been welcomed in the Cook Islands, for it restores a valuable source of earning power for the Group, writes an Islands correspondent interested in pearl shell trade.

The development lets the overseas market know that —for the next few years, anyway—not more than 100 tons of Mani hiki blacklip MOP will be coming on to the market.

This could have the effect of boosting prices. It has been shown that there is still a definite market for this grade of shell, where plastics have made serious inroads in the white shell market.

It is a curious fact that some overseas shell-buyers have wrongly discriminated against Cook Islands blacklip which does not come from Manihiki. Shell of equal quality can be fished at Penrhyn; and there are indications that Suwarrow shell is superior, if anything, to that of Mani hiki.

Well founded opinion in the Cooks is that if Penrhyn were “hard-dived” for some years, to clean the lagoon of weed and boring parasites, Penrhyn shell would be fully as good as Manihiki’s.

In post-war years—or, at least, since 1950—the Manihiki shell harvest averaged about 300 tons in the years that the lagoon was fished; so an annual level of 100 tons should be easily achieved.

NNG Timber Co. Developments

Industrial and General Credits Ltd., Sydney, an unlisted public company, has, according to a leaflet circulating in Sydney in March, announced an issue of £lOO,OOO registered first mortgage debenture stock at par (£5O) to obtain funds to develop its subsidiary ADI Timber Development Pty. Ltd.

ADI is the first Australian company to obtain a timber concession in Netherlands New Guinea, the grant running for 30 years. According to the IGC announce ment, the timber company has already sent its first shipment to Australia, realis ing gross receipts of nearly £40,600.

The timber was tested and apparently found satisfactory for use in the plywood industry as veneer facings, centre cores and back panels. Orders are in hand for the April shipment to return £67,500, and overseas sales are expected to gross £190,000 before June, said the IGC an nouncement.

However, following reports in the Sydney Press in early April that 14 Australian employees of ADI Timber Development were stranded without food or wages on Adi Island and that the captain and crew of the company’s supply ship Janis B were “stranded” in Darwin, PIM con tacted Industrial and General Credits in Sydney for a statement.

PIM was told that the Press story was “inaccurate” and that the company was “quite sound”. However, two of the six directors of ADI had applied to the Court in Sydney for an order to wind up ADI, and this aoplication was set down for April 24, PIM was told.

An officer of the company said also that the April shipment of timber would not now be received until a little later.

New developments will certainly be awaited with interest by those who have received the circulars or the prospectus seeking more money for the Adi Company.

Now is the Time for

Other Coconut Products

Now that copra prices are low, it might be well worth-while Islands governments making a concentrated effort to find other, profitable uses for coconut products.

Hawaii has been a pioneer in this field of production. Shredded coconut, coco nut syrup, and frozen coconut milk are produced there for export to USA.

At present research is going on in Hawaii and in India into the production of a coconut milk concentrate which will keep over long periods and which can be used as a base in many food industries.

Judging by retail prices of some of these coconut products in Hawaii, they could prove to be a good deal more lucrative than copra once a market had been de veloped.

More Exported, But Value

Less for NNG's 1960 Trade

Though there was a rise in quantity of Netherlands New Guinea exports from 261,919 metric tons in 1959 to 271,828 metric tons in 1960, the value dropped from Fls. 23,776,000 f £A2,797,200) in 1959 to Fls. 23,275,000 ( £A2,738,200) last year.

Copra returns declined considerably (in spite of an 800 tons rise in production), as also did the value of crude oil shipments and the export of dammar gum, copal (resin), shell and crocodile skins. In creases were made in timber, mace, nut meg and cocoa, but were not sufficient to counter the main fall of Fls. 1,250,000 (£A147,250) in crude oil consignments.

NNG’s principal markets were Australia (crude oil), Japan (oil, timber and scrap), and Netherlands (copra and produce).

Papuan Oil Search Goes On

The search for oil in Papua by Aus tralasian Petroleum Pty. Company is about to be resumed after a lapse of some months following the failure of the lehi deep bore and withdrawal of financial backing by the overseas partners, British Petroleum and Standard Vacuum.

APC directors, on April 12, announced that marine seismic reflection traverses were to start in mid-April in the entrances of the Turama and Fly rivers in the Gulf of Papua.