OUTPUT OF COAL

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24372, 26 September 1944, Page 4

OUTPUT OF COAL

DOMINION RECORD ACHIEVED LAST YEAR’S PRODUCTION EXCEEDED The output of 2,787,868 tons of coal during the last year constituted a record for the Dominion, and was an increase of 107,827, or 4.023 per cent, over the 1942 production. Compared with 1939. when war broke out, the production for 1943 showed an increase of 445,299 tons. During 1943 the quantity of coal imported was 37,454 tons, or 53,411 tons less than in the previous year, while exports (42,522 tons) were 12,178 tons less than in 1942. The output for each miner employed underground last year was 697 tons, a reduction of 35 tons as compared with 1942. The production for each man on the pay roll (both underground and surface workers) was 519, a decrease of 17 tons on the previous year. An increase in the consumption of coal during the war period was inevitable, says the Minister of Mines (the Hon. P. Ci Webb), in his annual report to Parliament, and the Government’s plans to meet the growing dehiand were successful until last year. Whereas most parts of the, Empire had been unable to maintain coal output during the war, New Zealand’s production had actually increased by 19 per cent, since 1939. To increase. coal production as quickly as possible, the Dominion, along with other countries, had devoted attention to mining by stripping such portions of the seams as were covered by shallow over-burden. Such open cast methods depended upon the use of mechanical strippers and excavators, and their adoption in New Zealand had to be postponed until such time as that equipment could either be released from construction of defence works or obtained from abroad. Geological surveys, accompanied in some cases by shallow mining, had been necessary to locate and define possible stripping areas. But real progress was now being made, said the Minister, in the winning of coal by such methods. It was expected that before the end of this year anout 2000 tons of coal a day would be 9btained from that system of mining from areas in both islands.