Story to be proud of

What a great picture in the Daily News (June 5) of the multigrade bitumen plant that is being constructed by Technix here in New Plymouth ready for shipment to Russia in 40ft containers.

Back in 1998, I was asked by John Mathews to carry out the process to design and trial a bitumen-blowing unit at the port, based on my experience of similar units on refineries.

Previously, blown bitumen (which makes the hard grade bitumen) had only been made at the refinery

The trials were successful.

As a retired chemical engineer, I then handed over the project to Technix engineers and went on to pursue improving my golf handicap.

Since then Technix have made a quantum leap in blowing technology and turned this basic refinery process into a skid-mounted ‘‘state of the art’’ multigrade bitumen plant for export to a number of overseas countries.

John Mathews and his Technix team are to be congratulated – a Taranaki export story to be proud of. Roger Vernon, New Plymouth