MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Punta Arenas Standard Wool plant reopens October

Standard Wool Chile S.A. from Punta Arenas which a year ago was razed to the ground by fire has begun to rebuild the plant and expects to be in full production by next October.

The new five million US dollars plant will have a roofed area of 6.500 square meters, most of it for wool combing and the rest for washing.

David Bell, from Standard Wool, Bradford, visited Punta Arenas for the launching of works in the renewed plant and was interviewed by the local newspaper La Prensa Austral.

Basically Mr. Bell said that the combing and washing capacities will be expanded; new equipments will be more state of the art and modifications have been planned in the layout to improve safety and environment friendly conditions.

In spite of the February 28/2005 accident, Standard Wool kept production by combing 250.000 kilos per month in Montevideo, Uruguay although the volume lately dropped to 200.000 kilos. In 2005 the company managed to industrialize 2.5 million kilos of wool, a million less than before the blaze.

The link with Montevideo ceases next October when the Punta Arenas renewed plant will be fully operational.

Mr. Bell revealed that the new plant can be described as "intelligent" since it will offer optimum sanitary and working conditions employing French technology for the combing sector and from New Zealand for the washing department. But he cautioned that an intelligent plant with highly automatic processes also means a reduction in staff.

As to capacity, the wool washing department will be able to cope with "two times the production of the province of Magallanes non stop".

However, regarding wool combing and carding "the operation will be more prudent dropping from 340.000 to 270.000 kilos per month", particularly since world market conditions changed dramatically last April-May 2005.

"Strong Chinese competition has forced the closure of several spinning mills in Italy, France and Spain, which were our regular clients".

The positive side is that South American and Australian wool have begun to recover ground because of quality problems in the Chinese production.

Mr. Bell ratified that Standard Wool Punta Arenas main clients are in Italy, Iran, Britain, Japan and United States.

Finally regarding delays in reopening the Punta Arenas plant Mr. Bell blamed it on "excessive paperwork" and complications with collecting the insurance money