AUCKLAND PLANT

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30828, 13 August 1965, Page 12

AUCKLAND PLANT

Reforming Considered (N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 12. The Auckland Gas Company is considering building a hydro-carbon reforming plant to change the characteristics of natural gas and make it suitable for existing gas appliances without conversion, the general manager, Mr R, P. Worley, said today. This plant would cost about £250,000. The company had not yet decided whether to reform the gas or to convert appliances. Conversion of appliances for natural gas could take imre than a year, he said. The cost of conversion for the company’s 31.000 consumers was estimated at £305,000. Mr Worley said he hoped the Government would build the pipeline to Auckland and amortise the cost over a period of years. The pipeline might be in the red in the early years, but in a few years it would become self-supporting. “We would like to buy the gas at our boundary in the same way that power boards buy their electricity,” Mr Worley said. “This would be the sensible way.”

Art Award.—The Sydney artist, Russell Drysdale, has won the £5OOO Britannica-Aus-tralia award for art for 1965. Winners in the education, literature. medicine and science sections will be announced soon.—Sydney, August 12.