JAN 23: After months of investigations and negotiations, C. and A. Odlin Ltd. has confirmed a proposal to export wood chips to Japan from Port Chalmers. The first chip shipment is scheduled to leave the port in January 1977.
In the company's annual report released yesterday, the chairman, Mr Huia Hill, said that a new company, South Wood Ltd., is being formed to undertake the project, which involves producing chips from wood waste at the Otago sawmills.
Major shareholders in the new company will be Odlins and the Development Finance Corporation with various other sawmillers in the area being given the opportunity to supply the company and take shares should they so desire, Mr Hill said.
Mr Hill said in Wellington yesterday that the operation would be similar to that already in use at Tauranga, although it would not be as sophisticated.
Chips would be provided by the mills on an individual basis, he said, and would include the Forest Service's mill at Conical Hill and local activities of Odlins.
Mr Hill declined to make any further statement regarding the proposal.
However, the general manager of the Otago Harbour Board, Mr R. F. de Lautour, said last night the move came as the result of many months of discussion between the board, Odlins and the New Zealand Forest Service.
He said he understood it was a comparatively short-term project designed to "fill the gap between the easing of the log trade and the establishment of some more long-term utilisation of the area's forests."