DUNEDIN GAS UNIT

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30938, 20 December 1965, Page 3

DUNEDIN GAS UNIT

Press Association) WELLINGTON, Dec. 19. A third catalytic oil reforming unit—which makes gas from a highly volatile oil—will be installed at Dunedin City Council’s gas works, according to the chairman of the New Zealand Gas Council, the Minister of Labour (Mr Shand). The oil reforming unit will supplement two similar units which meet the demand for gas in Dunedin at peak hours. Mr Shand, who is also Minister.of Labour, said Dunedin was expecting a considerable further expansion in the next two or three years.

i “Much of the necessary gas will come from higher use of of the city's coal-based carbonisation plant, but the associated peak load will be met by the existing small oil reforming units and the new one which it is proposed to instal," he said. The Minister said the peak demand for gas in Dunedin could be met more cheaply by the oil reformation method than by installing extra coal carbonisation plant “It can be brought into high production quickly and the low capital cost does not present the same financial burden as the capital cost of a coal carbonisation plant of similar capacity,” he said. But Mr Shand said the gas council's approval was conditional to the Dunedin City Council undertaking to use its

coal-burning plant to full capacity. “It seems unlikely it will be necessary to enforce any i penalty because failure to do so would prejudice the City i Council's claim to the gas subsidy.” Mr Shand said it was also in the best interests of the city council—as well as the national interest—to use coal to the maximum capacity of its existing plant because it was still a cheaper method of producing gas than from the oil reforming units. Mr Shand said be bad assured the Federation of Labour representative. Mr Prendiville, who strongly opposed the extension of the oil reforming units, that the

Gas Council could be careful to see that the plant was not operated to the detriment of the coal mining industry.