MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Punta Arenas main wool processing plant fire razed.

British owned Standard Wool in Punta Arenas which processes 60% of Magallanes Region wool will be out of the carding and combing business for the next 12/18 months following a devastating blaze that razed with all the plant's equipment, several warehouses and over a thousand bales of greasy wool.

Losses estimates range as high as six million US dollars since the Punta Arenas scouring, carding, combing and baling section, with machinery less than a year old, was completely destroyed by the fire.

"To this we have to add the buildings costs, some of which collapsed, and the thousand bales stored in the warehouses", said Standard Wool president, David Bell, who nevertheless indicated that in spite of the overall disaster "fortunately last week we had shipped all of our processed production to Europe, Iran and Japan".

A total of 85 people work in the plant which had a daily processing production of 14,000 kilos of wool, operating round the clock almost the whole year. According to Punta Arenas press the fire broke out in a small storage warehouse during the Sunday night shift when only 16 people were working in the scouring and carding section, rapidly spreading to the whole processing plant.

All of Punta Arenas Fire Department was called in to fight the blaze and two units were still in the plant Tuesday checking among the remains since Standard Wool is next to the Simunovic meat packing plant, the largest in Magallanes.

Carlos Calixto Miranda, plant manager, said that the equipment was insured and over 60% of greasy wool bales stored in other warehouses "a whole year's production" had been saved.

"However we're still not sure how the fire started but there's an investigation into the incident", added Mr. Calixto Miranda.

The company's president Mr. Bell estimated that replacing the plant's equipment will take anywhere from 12 to 18 months but assured labour stability for the staff during that period of time.

Mario Vega president of Magallanes Cattle Breeders Association described the blaze as a great blow for regional farmers but also highlighted that only the processing plant was destroyed and "Standard Wool will keep purchasing wool in Magallanes. They are a multinational corporation and have several plants round the world".

Magallanes mayor Jaime Jelincic regretted the possible loss of jobs and said the local government will try to help if there are redundancies because of the fire. Bernardo Troncoso the Chilean central government Finance Ministry representative in Magallanes underlined the importance of Standard Wool's added value effort to the region's farm exports, but reminded farmers that "there are other buyers of wool".

Punta Arenas press finally recalls that Standard Wool Chile was recently purchased in Britain by some of its corporate directors, but it was pointed out that "this would not alter the company's activities in Magallanes".