A mushroom on the Ramu

Papua New Guinea has a new town which has almost mushroomed overnight on the hills by the Ramu River gorge down from the New Guinea Highlands.

The town is Yonki, dormitory for the cosmopolitan crowd working on the multimillion dollar Ramu hydro electric scheme, which will harness the Ramu rapids as they fall 2,500 feet into the Ramu Valley. Work is already ahead of schedule and the Ramu’s mighty waters will be pro ducing power by early 1975. The first stage uses the first 750 ft of the Ramu’s fall; stage two the remaining 1,800 ft.

Built at a cost of 51.2 million by Morobe Constructions Pty Ltd of Lae, Yonki stands beside the High lands Highway, 14 miles from Kai nantu and about 125 miles from Lae.

Its primary school bears witness to the variety of nationalities working on the scheme. There are Korean, Australian and New Guinean children on the roll and they will be joined by Yugoslavians and others.

The first stage includes construction of an underground power station, initially for three 15 megowatt generators and construction of more than 300 miles of transmission lines to link with Lae and Madang on the coast and Goroka and Mount Hagen in the Highlands.

The second stage will be put off for as long as is economically possible but will include the installation of two more 15 mw generating sets in the underground power station, construc tion of a large underground reservoir, and re-routing of the Highlands High way over the dam wall.

The International Bank of Recon struction and Development, which has lent $2O million for the scheme, is the major financer.

The main civil contract for the scheme has been let to the South Korean company, Hyun-Dai Con struction Company for $ll million.

Their work, now under way for almost a year, includes the construc tion of pressure and access shafts, underground machine hall, diversion weir, intake works and control build ing for the Ramu No 1 power station.

Hyun-Dai works have now reached the stage where the generating and associated equipment can be installed and this $3 million contract has been let to Progress International of Yugo slavia.

Their job includes construction of the generators for the underground power station, design, supply, testing and maintenance of equipment, in stallation and commissioning of tur bines, alternators and controls.

The Papua New Guinea Electricity Commission is handling the design and supervising the construction of power lines and sub-stations and the $4 million contract for the high voltage power lines has been awarded to the Australian company, Electric Power Transmission Pty Ltd.

Guadalcanal company

taken over

Guadalcanal Plains Ltd, founded by the late Mr Ken Dalrymple Hay in 1965, has been taken over by an American company, Mindoro Inter national Corporation. The company operates a self-service store and a butcher’s shop in Honiara, and has about 10,000 acres of Guadalcanal Plains country including Ilu Farm.

Previous shareholders in Guadal canal Plains Ltd, have been given an option to buy back into the company on favourable terms over the next six years. Mr R. B. Raines, chairman of Guadalcanal Plains Ltd, is still chairman, but his fellow directors, I. C. Walton, D. G. Thompson and E. L. Sly, have been replaced by I.

R. Long jun, Arthur V. Langman, G. Arthur Weaver, and Gerald Skip Vontsteen.