Plant design continues

The design of a new $200 million cement plant near Weston is continuing even though its proponent, Holcim (New Zealand) Ltd, is having appeals against its plans lodged with the Environment Court.

The Weston plant is one of two options being explored by Holcim to meet a growing demand for cement in New Zealand. The other is continuing with Holcim's Westport plant with an appropriate maintenance and capital works programme and meeting any additional demand by importing cement.

Holcim was granted resource consents for the Weston plant by the Waitaki District and Otago Regional Councils earlier this year, but appeals against them have been lodged with the Environment Court, with a pre-hearing conference being convened in Oamaru on April 28.

Holcim this week is distributing in the Oamaru area about 8000 copies of its latest newsletter on the Weston cement plant option.

In it, the company's capital projects manager, Ken Cowie, outlines a recent visit by Swiss consulting engineer from Holcim Group Support, Florentin Venzin, to New Zealand.

Mr Venzin held meetings with the cement supply options team and continued to work on the layout and technical design aspects of the Weston plant. He has been leading the engineering planning for the plant since he last visited New Zealand in 2005.

The newsletter also outlines why Holcim has appealed its own resource consents.

The appeal is to clarify conditions of its consents, although two other appeals - those lodged by the Waiareka Valley Preservation Society and Kakanui Riverwatch Society - are in opposition to the plant.

Mr Cowie said Holcim was not opposed to the consent conditions in principle.

The company simply wanted to ensure that conditions associated with the consents were reasonable and workable, he said.

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