Cement) made a firm commitment to construct a plant. The plant was expected to have a production capability of 120,000 tons per annum, and employ 200 workers. The facility would use 40,000 tonnes of Buller coal annually. The capital required for the plant would be £2,500,000 with only £100,000 to be raised in New Zealand. The first production from the new plant at Cape Foulwind was in November 1958, and the official opening was held on 15 February 1959. In 2013, the owner Holcim, announced plans to close the factory, and cease making cement in New Zealand. The Cape Foulwind cement works closed in June 2016 after 58 years of operation, with the loss of 105 jobs. Mineral sands mining In May 2022, a mining company Westland Mineral Sands, was granted resource consent by a joint hearings panel of the West Coast Regional Council and Buller District Council, for a proposal to mine 500,000 tonnes of mineral sands over seven years, at its property at Okari, to the south of Cape Foulwind. A group of local residents appealed the decision of the hearings panel in the Environment Court, seeking lower limits on noise levels and more restrictions on operating hours. Mining of the mineral sands was forecast to commence in October 2022, with to be strip-mined at a time. Railway line The Cape Foulwind Railway was a branch railway line built in 1886 by the Westport Harbour Board, to transport rocks from their quarry to the breakwaters in the Buller River. Three Steeples Rocks and Black Reef The Three Steeples and Black Reef are 28 rocky islets, rising to a bit over high, about north of Cape Foulwind. They are granite rocks, named by Jules Dumont d'Urville as Les Trois Cloches on 12 January 1827 and shown as Three Steeples on James Wyld's 1839 map. They had been known to sealers as Black Rocks since at least 1826. Patrick O'Regan thought these were the rocks illustrated by Isaack Gilsemans, when Tasman first anchored in New Zealand waters on 14 December 1642. The Dutch inscription beneath the drawings has been translated as the Rocky Point. The lighthouse seems to have been effective, as no wreck has been recorded on the rocks, though in 1881 the Anchor Shipping and Foundry Company's paddle steamer Charles Edward (1864-1908) was holed and then towed to Westport. Also, in 1946, the Union Steamship's collier, Karepo, stranded