200 jobs: Plant one step closer

Eight years of hard work, determination and sacrifice have paid off for Ray Mountford.
The former Murupara man is the face behind a new Central North Island forestry venture set to create up to 200 new jobs as the result of a $12 million investment in a new processing plant in Kaingaroa Village.
Following confirmation of the plant site, construction is expected to take 12 months, creating 50 jobs, to be followed later by another 150.
The plant will take forest waste like tree stumps and turn it into turpentine and rosin.
Rosin is an ingredient used in printing inks, photocopying and laser printing paper, varnishes, adhesives, soap, paper sizing, soda, soldering fluxes and sealing wax.
Turpentine can be used for thinning oil-based paints and producing varnishes, although Mr Mountford said the turpentine his business would extract would mainly be used for fragrance bases.
A letter of intent was signed yesterday by Dan Williams, from investors American Pine and Rosin Derivatives and Mr Mountford, from locally-based Pacific Pine Derivatives.
Mr Mountford said he'd been working on the venture for eight years.
"To finally get to this point is the best feeling."
Initially he had looked at investing in pine as a unique commodity and during the conception stage looked for ways he could use the "magnificent resource". He said he began working with the industry to develop ways of using the stumps, which made up a third of a tree's mass.
He said pine stumps had the highest concentration of rosin and the technology designed to extract it was a world first.
Mr Mountford said he grew up involved in forestry and had also worked at a petro-chemicals refinery which was where he learnt the trade.
The venture would open export doors but the extraction process would remain a closely-guarded secret, Mr Mountford said.
"We want to protect it. It's important for New Zealand to guard our secrets."
Mr Mountford said Kaingaroa Village was the preferred site for the plant - ahead of Kawerau - and construction would be confirmed within three months.
Mr Williams said it was exciting to come to Rotorua see how the process worked.
He said it showed New Zealand and Rotorua as "a climate that was open for business".
Rotorua MP Todd McClay, who has been involved in setting up the venture, said Mr Mountford had approached him a few years ago to discuss ways of keeping the venture in New Zealand.
"We wanted to make sure it stayed here," Mr McClay said.
The last few years in the Bay of Plenty had been tough and it was great to finally see some new jobs on the horizon for locals. He would now be ensuring the Government continued to support the venture, he said.
He said he would be trying to ensure resource consents went through as smoothly as possible.