GAS SUPPLY IN WELLINGTON

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23941, 7 May 1943, Page 4

GAS SUPPLY IN WELLINGTON

ABNORMAL DEMAND USERS ASKED TO ECONOMISE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, May 6. There is no immediate acute problem over the gas supply in Wellington, but an abnormal demand and manpower problems at the works have combined to create a position that calls for constant economy during the winter. In a statement today, the manager (Mr M. J. Kennedy) said that the company was seriously disturbed by the suspension of coal supplies from Australia, as it had depended bn this class of coal to assist in meeting abnormal demands. War conditions had caused a tremendous increase in the demand. The company had been in constant touch with the Government, and appreciated that the Goverrynent had done everything possible to assist. Figures of consumption for the first four days of May of this year and last year show an increase from 10,776,000 cubic feet to 13,365,000 cubic feet, or 25 per cent,

The serious position of coal supplies as affecting the North Island was a result mainly of the shortage of available shipping, and of the fact that New Zealand depends on Australia for about 100.000 tons of Newcastle coal every year, said the manager of the Christchurch Gas Company (Mr C. W. Hodge), when this message was referred to him. The imported coal was used chiefly by gas undertakings, and by the railways. . , Supplies of coal for the Christchurch Gas Company were drawn almost exclusively from the West Coast mines, said Mr Hodge. Any threat to the gar service in Christchurch in the coming winter could only occur as the result' of the persistent diversion of supplies of West Coast coals to meet the emergency ir the North Isbnd The Mines Department was fully alive to the necessity of delivering sufficient supplies to maintain the gas service in Christchurch, which had never failed in 80 years, he added.