Back To Gas Lighting

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30892, 27 October 1965, Page 13

Back To Gas Lighting

Gas lighting was becoming l fashionable in Sydney, said 1 Mr W. W. Pettingell, general manager of the Sydney Gas Company, in an interview in; Christchurch. Soft gas lights were being used in restaurants and homes, and historical places' such as Vaucluse House were being restored with gas lighting. The gas industry in Australia. he said, had a very bright and substantial future with the advent of natural gas. Queensland and Victoria had big natural gas potentials, as had Central Australia at Meereenie. near Alice Springs. There were gas deposits within 100 miles of Perth and, in South Australia, some 500 miles of Adelaide. Within three years, he predicted, natural gas transmis-

' sion to the main cities and bigger provincial cities would I be effected. . This would have a profound : effect on the industrialisation programme of New South : Wales. The natural gas would be cheaper and the industry j would expand considerably. [Natural gas would be used in i the chemical and fertiliser industries. At the moment the major part of Sydney’s gas supply came from the manufacture 1 of petroleum. Coal gas had a declining role. I Mr Pettingell said the Syd- : ney Gas Company produced Jone-third of the gas used in ! I Australia. ■ “We supply roughly 350,000 '[consumers,” he said. “About . 140 per cent of our output goes . ' to industry. We have reticula•|tion of between 300 and 400 • i square miles and the terri-

tory embraces 8000 to 9000 miles of mains.”

The New Zealand gas indu’try, he said, would face an equally bright future if supplies of natural gas could be found in sufficient quantities to be economic.