Minerals firm in overdrive to triple output

TAURANGA businessmen Paul Tidmarsh and Dave Hill have always thought big.
Ever since Mr Tidmarsh built the world-renowned Barmac rock crushers and Mr Hill sold them in North America, they have wanted to grow businesses.
Today, their processing company, Blue Pacific Minerals, is getting ready to triple production - and  much of it will be exported.
Blue Pacific, operating for 12 years, is the country's largest processor of zeolite and perlite ore, captured from its own mines in the volcanic regions of Bay of Plenty and Waikato.
The natural minerals have wide uses for domestic, commercial, agricultural and industrial applications.
Zeolite, a microporous solid, has strong consumer appeal as an absorbent for kitty litter,  barbecue fat and oil spills - and it is a vital ingredient for slow release fertilisers.
Blue Pacific has closed its packaging, storage and distribution centre at Waharoa and moved its entire operation to Tokoroa.
The  company is investing about $7 million, buying a 3500sq m building in the Carter Holt Harvey subdivision on the southern edge of Tokoroa.
The building will initially be used as the packaging and distribution centre. But the directors Mr Tidmarsh, who lives at Mount Maunganui, and Mr Hill, from Te Puna, will also install a $5 million zeolite processing plant within two years.
The existing plant in Tokoroa, which has processed both minerals, will continue to produce perlite, a rock made of volcanic glass.
Mr Hill fondly refers to perlite as "popcorn rock". When it is fed into a furnace at 850C  it expands more than 25 times its original volume - "from a pin head to a golf ball".
The perlite forms a "cheesy" substance when used in foundries, and in an expanded form finds uses as industrial loose-fill insulation. It is also used in plasters and ceiling tiles, and when milled it filters some of our best wines.
"We have resources lasting 100 years for both minerals," said Mr Hill. "We choose them because they can be extracted using the same equipment and (kiln drying/screening) process.
"The zeolite, for instance, is the best and most commercial supply available because it's geologically young and has greater absorbency capacity," he said. Natural zeolites form where volcanic rocks and ash layers react with alkaline groundwater.
Blue Pacific receives its zeolite supplies from its open-cast mine 20km south of Rotorua at Ngakuru, and the perlite comes from a mine on forestry land just south of Tokoroa.
Demand for both minerals is growing, the existing facilities at Waharoa and Tokoroa reached capacity, and it was time for Blue Pacific to expand.
Mr Hill said the company can comfortably increase production of perlite from 5000 tonnes to 20,000 tonnes, and zeolite from 12,000 dry tonnes to 40,000 tonnes within two years.
Staff numbers would increase by a third to 30 full-time equivalents and turnover would break through the $20 million mark.
Nearly all of the perlite is exported to Australia and south east Asia (the annual consumption in these markets is 200,000 tonnes), while 60 per cent of the zeolite is sold in New Zealand and the rest is sent overseas. Blue Pacific's zeolite forms 95 per cent of the cat litter market in New Zealand.
Mr Tidmarsh and Mr Hill first started processing aluminium particles from the dross or slag deposited at smelters around the country.
Mr Tidmarsh founded Resource Refineries at Waharoa in 1992 and Mr Hill joined him as a business partner three years later.
They finished up exporting 70 per cent of the recycled aluminium to smelting companies in Australia, Sri Lanka and India, but the supply of the raw material in New Zealand began to dry up.
"We were dependent on the availability of big volumes of raw slag but secondary smelters closed down and the scrap was bought up by the big international companies. We had to change our business," said Mr Hill.
 They sold the aluminium processing plant to an Australian company and bought Tokoroa-based Natural Zeolite in 1998, changing the name to Blue Pacific Minerals.
Before then, they ran one of Matamata's most successful businesses. Mr Tidmarsh established Tidco which had the licence to manufacture the Barmac crusher invented by Aucklander Bryan Bartley and Wellingtonian Jim Macdonald.
Mr Hill helped set up the North American operation, basing himself in Atlanta and then Ontario for five years and establishing a network of dealers across each of the Canadian provinces.
Back in Matamata, Tidco was employing 110 staff to make the Barmac vertical shaft impact crusher which was sold to quarries and mines around the world. It became a recognised industry standard and soon caught the eye of the multi-nationals.
Swedish minerals processing company Svedala bought Tidco in 1989 and then Svedala was taken over by Metso Minerals in 2005. But Svedala Barmac continues to operate in Matamata, employing 70 people and exporting 90 per cent of its products.
For more than 20 years, Tidco/Svedala Barmac have accounted for 10 per cent of New Zealand's heavy machinery exports.
But Svedala didn't want any of Tidco's other quarrying and engineering products. So Mr Tidmarsh formed Rocktec in 1990, carried on making the equipment with a staff of up to 54, and sold that business to Auckland-based Stevenson Group in November 2007.
By then Mr Tidmarsh was fascinated by the properties, and commercial opportunities, of zeolite and perlite.
"Their uses are as good as your imagination. We are taking a liquid product and turning it into a solid and adding value," said Mr Tidmarsh.