The plant, estimated to be worth more than $210 million when completed, is being built for the Chinese company Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, which in April bought the 38ha site with its resource consents from New Zealand company Oceania Dairy.
At the same time as the plant is being built, work has also started widening the State Highway 1-Cooneys Rd intersection, north of Glenavy, to provide turning lanes both north and south, as well as extending the culvert for the Morven Glenavy Ikawai irrigation scheme.
Cooneys Rd will also be widened and sealed to improve access to the site. One access would be for milk tankers entering and the other for trucks taking finished product.
A new 12km-long 110kV electricity supply is being built from Bell's Pond to a new transformer for the plant site.
Once fully operational, the plant is expected to produce 47,000 tonnes of product by 2016-17 and to employ up to 100 workers.
Babbage Consultant site manager Murray Gifford said yesterday work started at the site in April. Bulk earthworks were being done by Rooney Earthmoving. These were about 70% complete.
TeraPaK NZ Ltd and Ebert Construction are building the drier tower. A large-capacity crane last weekend started to lift precast concrete wall panels into place.
About 35 people are working on site at present and construction is running to schedule. The plant is due for completion and commissioning in July next year.
While the drier and its dry store construction are clearly visible now from SH1, still to come are a services block, administration office and boilers.
Work would start in October on the boilers and would take about eight months.
Mr Gifford said design of the plant and site was well advanced and major tender packages were going out to the market.
Fresh, treated and wastewater tanks, plus wastewater treatment, will be built on site.