Hot oil flows east

Pipes have gone in from the upsized Line 1 oil heater to the LVL press as NPIL reaps the environmental and financial benefits of the biggest project in its push to save on energy use.

This was also one of the major jobs of the Summer Maintenance Shutdown, and carried on into the first quarter as the team from Brightwater Engineering worked with NPIL staff.

The savings will come from replacing one megawatt of electricity with one megawatt of wood-waste generated energy, in a measure that will save the company up to $400,000 per year.

New executive appointment

Nelson businessman Peter Barr has joined NPIL as Deputy Chief Executive Officer of NPIL.

Mr Barr brings to this newly created position executive experience gained from his previous employment with BP Oil (NZ), and more recently as Chief Executive of the Tasman Rugby Union.

Long serving NPIL General Manager and former CFO Chris Turner is the current CEO.

Nelson Pine Industries Ltd Managing Director, Murray Sturgeon said the role of Deputy Chief Executive Officer has been created to provide a seamless continuity to the management structure of NPIL.

“It is imperative that the company has a succession management plan in place,” he said. “Peter’s appointment will bring freshness to the company, and will enable us to capitalise on the wealth of experience he brings to the group.”

GoldenEdge MDF fits out Christchurch’s ‘Pop Up’ Mall

When Christchurch’s City Mall ‘popped up’, nine months after the February earthquake,  GoldenEdge MDF was part of the action. The Pop Up Mall fulfilled the promise of having the city centre open by Cup Week in early November, with retailers and cafes clustered around the centerpiece of the Ballantynes’ department store.
The Pop Up Mall was created from shipping containers, and when South Island NPIL Representative Ken Spicer heard word of it he talked with some contacts of his at Placemakers Riccarton.
“They gave us the opportunity to put in a price and we won the contract to supply 25 packs of 12mm GoldenEdge MDF to Leighs Construction as the interior lining for the containers,” he explains. “Timber battens were fixed to the interior of the containers and then the MDF sheets were put in place and sprayed with a white paint finish to achieve a top class surface.”
The container fit out is by far the largest post-quake contract for raw MDF supply. Ken Spicer says the shopping complex is an extraordinary achievement, given that it was built in an eight-week time frame.
“Really when you’re there and inside the shops you wouldn’t know they were shipping containers,” he says. “It’s been very good for morale to have Ballantynes open and the mall up and going,  even though you can see the Grand Chancellor coming down over the fence.”

Praise for NPIL energy savings

NPIL has made major energy savings in a project that is partly funded by the Electricity Commission. They figure it is more efficient for government to help industry to introduce energy efficiencies, than to build new power stations.
The ECCA website now carries two stories about our projects, one featuring the switch to Variable Speed Drives as an energy saver on our fans, and the other about modifications to the compressed air system. Process Engineer James Cameron says even more savings could be made if operators go easy on the compressed air.
“Compressed air is at least 10 times more expensive than supplying other forms of energy, with most of the energy sucked up in producing heat in the compressor,” he says. “Typically a plant wastes as much as 50 percent of its expensive compressed air on inappropriate uses like cooling, artificial demand and on leaks so we are very interested in reducing its consumption as we work to reduce energy use at NPIL.”

Take a look at the ECCA site yourself at  10 ecca likes us 2

Significant for the region

The new NMIT Arts and Media building was officially opened by the Minister of Tertiary Education, Steven Joyce on March 31.
NMIT Chief Executive Tony Gray said the opening was a significant event for the region, with the building being the largest ever capital investment in the arts in the Top of the South.
The building, which was designed by local architects Irving Smith Jack and engineered by Aurecon, is sustainable, environmentally sensitive and local, with the design and resources all being sourced within 100 kilometres of Nelson. It’s a world-first for both its timber earthquake resistance design and its unique Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) primary structure design.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry gave a $1 million grant towards construction costs, to support the forest industry to meet objectives for climate change mitigation as well as creating sustainable resources for commercial building construction.