Saiccor - The First 50 Years 5.8 MB - Sappi

The First Fifty Years
The magnesium plant in operation, August 1985
had been transferred to the plant in February and was organised as
follows: Two superintendents per shift, including graduates Peter
Morris, Andy Stretton and Eugene Nicholson, fresh from Natal
Technikon, who were paired with experienced superintendents
Silvano Moro, Sergio Baldo and Alistair Macbeth; new mechanical
technicians Bernard Jorgensen-Lian, Lauro Chiccaro, Gianni Ioppo
and Des Fox, who had been working on the construction of the plant,
together with Mike Brull, were used as operators� The project team,
together with Lionel Davies, managed the start-up�
Lionel Davies was in the merchant navy before joining Saiccor as
an engineer on 1 December 1980� He was appointed Services Engineer
from February 1981 and Services Manager in August 1996� He left at
the end of August 2000� Throughout his career at Saiccor, Lionel was
in charge of the operation and maintenance of boilers, water coming
into the factory, and effluent going out� He worked very diligently
for 20 years, spending many hours in the factory solving and fixing
problems�
Secondary Recovery was started on 29 April 1985 to ‘synthesise’
cooking liquor� The first magnesium cook was made on 8 May in
No18 digester and the first washed pulp on 10 May� The evaporator
started on 22 May and the recovery boiler and turbogenerator on 3
June�
The project was completed on time but the cost had risen to R90
million as a result of the depreciation of the rand�
Norman Boulter put out a notice on 9 July, which stated: ‘At their
meeting on July 8th 1985, the Board of Directors of Saiccor expressed
their appreciation of the way in which the management and staff of
Saiccor had brought the new plant to the commissioning stage on
time� It was recognised that this considerable achievement was made
all the more remarkable by the fact that the existing plant had been
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Lionel Davies