Topic(s):
Located in Canterbury, New Zealand’s fastest growing dairying region, Darfield is the perfect spot for Fonterra’s new state-of-the-art milk powder processing plant. Stage one of the co-operative's first new processing site in 14 years, produced its first bag of whole milk powder in August 2012 - less than two years from the start of construction.
With milk production increasing by 5 - 6% per annum in the region, compared with 2 - 3% nationally, Fonterra wanted to construct a second dryer on the same site, aiming to treble milk production to 6.6 million litres per day to meet demand. Stage one is in full production and stage two is on track to commence production later this year.
“Fulton Hogan hold the civil infrastructure, roading and services contract for stage one and two of the project,” says Matt Harrop, Sales Representative for Humes Pipelines Systems. “This is a large project and the variety and volume of Humes products supplied to Fulton Hogan has been considerable.”
Product facts and figures
- 2km of class 4 concrete pipe in a variety of sizes
- Standard manhole covers in four different sizes
- 1.5km of pressure plastic pipe
- 10 fire hydrants
- 3km of plastic irrigation pipe – installed to handle the extracted water from the powder-drying process. The water will be irrigated from centre pivots on to farmland surrounding the factory site for grazing and growing silage and other feed crops.“Being ahead of schedule wouldn’t be possible if our suppliers weren’t getting us what we need in time,” says Carl Ryan, Canterbury Drainage Manager for Fulton Hogan. “It’s pretty busy on site and Humes are on to it.”
Winston Smith, Project Manager from Fulton Hogan explains, “We are ahead of schedule with the civil works nearly complete. With 20 – 30 contractors on site at any one time it’s important that everyone performs, and I can say that there have been no complaints at all with Humes. In fact there is such a huge demand on products, as the Canterbury rebuild gets underway, taking that into account as well, Humes have performed very well.”
“Being ahead of schedule wouldn’t be possible if our suppliers weren’t getting us what we need in time,” says Carl Ryan, Canterbury Drainage Manager for Fulton Hogan. “It’s pretty busy on site and Humes are on to it.”
“Most of the product was manufactured out of our Hornby plant and they did a marvellous job in keeping up with demand,“ adds Matt. “We have had to be flexible as things often changed on site and we have had to accommodate an additional order or a change to an existing order. I am really happy that we have kept up with everything that Fulton Hogan wanted.”
Dairy facts and figures:
- New Zealand is the world’s leading dairy exporter – accounting for around a third of the global dairy trade
- Fonterra processes around 89% of New Zealand’s total milk production
- Fonterra is New Zealand’s biggest company and is responsible for 25% of New Zealand’s total export earnings
- Each year Fonterra processes about 17 billion litres of milk in New Zealand
- Once the Darfield plant is complete it will have a processing capacity of about 6.6 million litres of milk per day
The new site will reduce the distance Fonterra milk tankers have to travel by 30,000 kilometres a day
