COAL FOR CEMENT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 152, 29 June 1945, Page 6

COAL FOR CEMENT

NORTH AUCKLAND OUTPUT

NOT ALL AVAILABLE

Direction of the total output from the Waro and Kamo cpal mines to the Portland cement works, as recently suggested, was completely impracticable, said the mining controller, Mr. C. H. Benney, to-day. The production from the two collieries, he said, was roughly 2000 tons weekly, and approximately onehalf of the output was consigned to the cement works, 700 tons weekly were used in railway locomotives, and the balance was supplied to the Moerewa freezing works and local dairy factories. Small quantities were used at the hospitals, the gas works and the local brick works.

The idea that the. Portland works could carry on with coal from the Northland mines only and that the railways could do without any coal at all from that source was totally inconsistent with the views expressed by both the cement company and the Railway Department up to the present.

"The shortage of coal at Portland is due to the recent shipping delays on the West Coast," said Mr. Benney. "I was on the West coast last week, and the problem at both Westport and Reefton is not coal production but the securing of sufficient railway wagons and adequate shipping to remove the very large accumulations of coal in the bins and in dumps. This transport bottleneck is making it extremely difficult to keep all mines working, and greatly increased quantities of coal could be produced if shipping and rail transport were available. Every effort is being made by both the Railway Department and the shipping companies to assist in overcoming this difficulty, but it is as well to remember that a condition of coal scarcity is not always the fault of the industry."