While North Otago people are keen to know whether a $400 million cement plant will be built in the Waiareka Valley near Weston, Holcim (New Zealand) is asking them to be patient so a "careful and responsible" decision can be made.
Holcim has received resource consent approval from the Environment Court, but still has several steps to go through before its makes a decision on whether to build the plant.
That final decision is unlikely to be made before late next year.
Holcim's capital projects manager Ken Cowie said that while the Environment Court outcome was one further step in the process, some important stages were still to be worked through.
Several months' work was still to be completed on the detailed costings, feasibility study and business case for the project, factoring in the conditions accepted by the Environment Court.
The conditions cover areas such as air emissions, water management, noise emissions, landscaping and planting, hours of operations, and traffic management.
"Having reviewed the 100-page court decision, we feel the conditions are reasonable and workable and are based on the effects that technical experts say could result from the construction and operation of the proposed plant."
Mr Cowan understood people were keen to know whether a cement plant would be built near Weston.
However, this was a very significant business decision and one which needed to be made in a careful and responsible manner.
That included final approval from Holcim (New Zealand) parent company's board of directors in Switzerland.
That decision could be influenced by factors such as how the Weston options compared with other international investment opportunities, availability of capital, satisfaction with the information supplied by Holcim New Zealand, and New Zealand Government policies (particularly the emissions trading scheme review outcomes).
