First sawmill to Niue in years

Just last month, the island was able to welcome onshore its first sawmill after several years without one and the man behind the arrival of the sawmill to the island is Anton Nemaia. 

The sawmill – Peterson WPF Swingblade – was sourced from a Rotorua, New Zealand company known as Peterson Portable Sawmills. 

Last Wednesday, BCN News was able to speak with Anton and also Sales Consultant Greg Sheehan of the Peterson Portable Sawmills who arrived on the island a week ago with his wife to provide training on the use of the sawmill. 

“It’s quite a journey for the sawmill. We send sawmills all around the world. This is not new for us. It is exciting that we can come and do some training here.”

“That sawmill has already been tested in New Zealand. We set the tracks up and I went through some of the safety manual things that we do with our customers, with Anton,” says Greg. 

Anton told BCN News that he is excited. For now, he plans to focus on how to use the sawmill before looking ahead on how it can benefit Niue. 

“It’s something I have been looking into for a number of years and I did research. I looked online and these guys (Peterson Portable Sawmills) have really good customer reviews, the customers they have are very happy with them and they do a lot of mills for the islands and Australia, New Zealand and the States as well. I haven’t heard anything bad and I went with them.”

“They are based in New Zealand as well so it’s close for parts and they managed to come all the way out here to do training as well. It’s been good,” says Anton. 

The sawmill was blessed last Thursday before a demonstration to the first use of the sawmill took place. 

Greg and his lovely wife departed the island on today’s flight.