We rely on our people, innovation and technology to deliver our pine tree products as sustainably and safely as possible to customers around the world.

We operate on the basis of mutual understanding and trust, and responsibly meet any challenges that come our way.

For almost 40 years we have extracted natural compounds which are then used in a vast array of modern industries including fragrances, pharmaceuticals, disinfectants, graphic arts, adhesives, paper, packaging and labelling, speciality coatings, and synthetic rubber.

Lawter NZ is part of a wider global business owned by the Harima Chemicals Group which operates in over 20 countries and has nine manufacturing and technology centres worldwide - one of which is based right here in the Bay of Plenty. We are unique within the Harima Group as we are the only site to process crude turpentine to extract natural compounds which are then used to produce pine oil and myrcene (which provides the distinctive smell and taste of menthol in your cough syrup and other products).

We employ over 45 Bay of Plenty locals including operators, engineers, lab technicians, distributors, HR, finance and customer service staff as well as a team of local contractors. Together, we're proud to harness the power of organic chemistry and send our products around the world - 95% of what we make is exported via the Port of Tauranga to the Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas where it is transformed into an enormous range of other useful goods.

We distil these two raw products by heating them and passing the vapours through a series of distillation columns at our manufacturing plant. This process separates out natural components such as fatty acids, pitch, rosin, and pinenes. Some of these compounds are sold without further processing while others are processed into products such as tackifier resins, rosin dispersions, myrcene, pine oil and dipentene.

Each of these products is then securely packaged at our Mount Maunganui site and shipped off to our clients around the Asia Pacific region and beyond, for use in manufacturing other goods.

The range of products that contain natural chemicals derived from pine trees is truly remarkable. Disinfectants, cough medicines, adhesive labelling (food and general packaging), hot melt glue, body wax, acrylic paint, soap, cardboard packaging, tyres, pharmaceutical steroids…the list goes on! Even road marking paint contains pine tree rosin to help the paint stick to the road surface and dry quickly.

By extracting every last drop of useful material from pine trees, we help other industries - and communities around the globe - make full use of this environmentally sustainable resource.

The natural compounds found inside pine trees have been highly valued ever since.

In March 1980, an evaluation study suggested there was an attractive investment opportunity here in New Zealand. Tasman Pulp and Paper and NZ Forest Products (who owned the mills in Kawerau and Tokoroa), decided to establish a joint venture to process their pine tree waste and derive maximum value from each log.

They settled on a 3.7ha site in Mount Maunganui as it was close to the Port of Tauranga and began sending their by-products there in August 1983.

The new company was originally known as Pine Chemicals NZ Ltd. A Crude Tall Oil fractionation plant was built first, followed several months later by a crude turpentine facility.

By the late 1980s the company had transformed itself from a basic commodity fractionator and began producing, selling and marketing tall oil and turpentine value-added derivatives.

Ownership has changed multiple times in the past four decades and the company was most recently bought by the Harima Chemicals Group in 2010 and renamed Lawter NZ Limited in February 2011.