The $64 million spend to convert two coal boilers to wood pellets at Fonterra’s Clandeboye dairy factory is having a positive spinoff for engineering companies in Timaru.
A significant part of the work, the construction of four huge baghouse filters, has been completed this week by Parr and Co at their site at Timaru’s port.
Mick Coffey, project manager for Parr and Co, said the steel filters were each about 15m high, and had also resulted in work for 360 Cranes, Industrial Controls, Blastcraft and other companies.
“It’s just been really great for us, especially in this quiet season with Alliance [Smithfield meatworks] folding, we would have been a little bit quieter,” Coffey said.
“We have got a multitude of customers, but this is an extra one on top of that.
Coffey said there were other parts being built elsewhere for the project.
“This is only one part of it. So it’s a massive project going on at right at the moment.”
Coffey said the vertical filters have bags that hang down inside. “So the gasses go through the bottom, the bags clean the air, and the air goes out through the top to the stacks … so there’s no pollutants going out in the atmosphere… they filter out the particles.”
“It gets all the particles and all the nasties out, all the ash and everything, that’s why you don’t see smoke at Clandeboye because it’s all gone through that.”
The four baghouses have been transported by road to the Clandeboye site this week, two on Tuesday and one each on Wednesday and Thursday.
“The guys that are doing it are used to moving houses so they know what they’re doing … it’s actually gone really well, and they’ve gone straight up and set into place.”
Coffey said it was one of their larger jobs, particularly in meeting the “very short space of time” they were given.
“We only ordered the material in October, and they are getting up the road now.
“We are actually contracted to Windsor Engineering in Wellington, but it is for Fonterra Clandeboye. Windsor have the design and build for boilers one and two out there for the major changes to suit the new biofuel they are going to burn.”
Coffey wouldn’t be drawn on the cost of Parr and Co’s project, other than to say “it’s up over the million mark”.
“It’s probably not for me to disclose … it’s great for the local economy anyway, it’s good for Timaru … we did a lot of overtime to get it done in time.”
Fonterra confirmed the Clandeboye project in December 2024 saying the change would cut the co-operative’s overall manufacturing emissions by 9%, the equivalent of removing more than 64,000 cars from New Zealand roads each year.
The factory, about 12km north-east of Temuka, employed more than 1000 people, had a fleet of 70 tankers that collected 2.6 billion litres of milk per year, and processed about 40% of Fonterra’s South Island milk.
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