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Some New Zealand dairy plants back on-line

Dairy producers on New Zealand’s north island are still dumping some milk. Gas supplies to the island were cut off when a leak was discovered in the main pipeline supplying the island on Monday night. Commercial users including 15 Fonterra dairy plants were shut down due to the lack of gas. An estimated 35 million liters (9.2 million gallons) of milk were dumped on Tuesday.

All but three of the plants were able to restart on Wednesday thanks to a smaller back-up pipeline. As a result, the co-op says it was able to collect and process about two-thirds of the milk in the area but another 11 million liters (2.9 million gallons) of milk were dumped Wednesday. By Thursday, that number was down to five million liters (1.3 million gallons) dumped.

The cooperative is advising farmers that the availability of gas remains limited and they may have to shut some of the plants down again. The pipeline management company says the main line will be back by the weekend.

This comes at a most inopportune time as milk production has been strong in New Zealand and plants were running full-out. The first question is how long will it take to get back to full capacity? Second question is how will this affect product availability? The third question; who is going to pay for the lost milk?