Peter John Oom
Peter John Oom
(1930 - 2009)
Peter Oom was born on 10 October 1930 in Sydney. He attended the Church of England primary school in Mosman and North Sydney Boys High School. On leaving school he became a cadet engineer with Dunlop, and later worked with the North Shore Gas Company, while studying chemical engineering as evening classes at Sydney Technical College, leading to an Associate Diploma at Sydney Technical College in 1955. He continued studies at the University of New South Wales, graduating BSc in Chemical Engineering in 1956.
He went to Canada in 1957 and worked for the Aluminium Company of Canada, a major smelter being developed at Kitimat, working on carbon plant and pot lines first as Production Engineer, then Design Engineer on plant modifications. In 1959 he worked for Comalco (British Aluminium Company (BAC) and Con Zinc) at Newport, Monmouthshire to learn about alumina manufacturing. He was told to report to Comalco in Melbourne, Victoria after Reynolds bought BAC.
He was very knowledgeable about the aluminium industry compared with other Australians and was involved in pre-planning Australian smelters. There was an early feasibility study for Bluff Smelter, New Zealand. The Kaiser Aluminium Smelting Company had bought out the BAC component of Comalco. Reporting to Kaiser/Con Zinc, Oom chose the Bluff site, but the World Bank and other financiers did not agree to financing.
In 1962 Oom left Comalco and joined Simon-Carves. He was one of the leaders in Australia on smelting and alumina manufacturing. At this time he was involved in the changes in pot sizes at Bell Bay, Tasmania, from 40,000 amps to 100,000 amps, and the development of the titanium boride cell.
Since Simon-Carves were strong in fertiliser and phosphoric acid plants, Oom was sent to Japan to study details of the Nissan Phosphoric Acid process - a new 'wet' process. One such plant was at Niigate. He sold the process to Pinkenba plant at Brisbane and ICI plants at Yarraville, Victoria, and Kooragang Island, NSW.
In 1964 Oom undertook the Mt Eliza Staff College intermediate course, and then joined Crooks Michell Peacock & Stewart (CMPS) who were project managers for the Kurri Kurri Aluminium smelter. He was also involved in Electrolitic Zinc's smelter at Risdon. Tasmania. Major challenges, and successes were the CMPS joint venture with Holderbank Financiers and the Queensland Cement Lime Company's Darra project where the consortium proposed to develop substantial limestone reserves inland from Gladstone at Mt Larcom. Other parties were not interested in a feasibility study so CMPS formed a joint venture with Holderbank with Oom the project manager. The project started in 1979. A cement clinker plant was constructed at Gladstone in 1980 and 1981.
Oom formed a joint venture between CMPS and William Brothers for pipeline contracts. He prepared a tender for the Moomba to Sydney gas pipeline for the Australian Gas Light Company. (AGL). The proposal was for Australian tradesmen with some USA superintendents, but a USA project manager was appointed.
In 1980 Oom returned to Simon-Carves as Marketing Manager in charge of all types of process engineering. Ron Maddock was the new Managing Director of Simon-Carves. Oom was made Executive Director of Simon-Carves, who then were tendering for electrical and hydraulic contracts, and also for erection packages.
Simon-Carves won multi-million-dollar contracts for turbo alternator erection. The company were the most competent welders of steam piping in Australia. At this period of high inflation, wages were increasing dramatically but Oom was able to steer Simon-Carves through successful negotiations with the unions.
Oom went to Varkus in Finland for Simon-Carves to become a sub-contractor for Olympic Dam, South Australia, boilers. He took early retirement in July 1991 after negotiating a $100 million copper smelter contract with Mount Isa Mines Ltd but remained as a non-executive director of Simon-Carves until 1995.
Peter Oom had married Barbara and they had children Steven and Ingrid. He died on 20 July 2009.
To access an oral history interview with Peter Oom please use this link:'
