Kapuni Plant Ready To Supply Gas

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32296, 14 May 1970, Page 32

Kapuni Plant Ready To Supply Gas

(New Zealand Press Association) NEW PLYMOUTH, May 13. The general manager of the Natural Gas Corporation (Mr R. M. O’Callahan) announced tonight that the Kapuni treatment plant was ready to supply North Island authorities with natural gas.

I This news comes after I months of delays to the (commissioning of the multi - million - dollar plant.

Mr O’Callahan said it had been decided by directors of the corporation at a meeting in Wellington on Tuesday that commissioning of the treat|ment plant had reached a stage where reliable supplies of natural gas could be made available to all the North Island undertakings. He said, however, that there was still work to be done at the plant and prob-

lems to be solved before the full capacity was achieved. This was not expected to cause any delays in the work of the conversion teams, J although some rearrangement of their programme would be necessary.

Mr d’Callahan said that with the announcement that Kapuni was ready to begin regular supplies of gas, various gas undertakings would now be working on their own conversion programmes and the corporation hoped to see some consumers burning natural gas in the very near future.

“The corporation regrets the delays due to various difficulties,” he said.

The next step in bringing natural gas to the consumers would be up to the various gas authorities. “As far as we are concerned, we could supply natural gas on a regular basis tomorrow if it was needed,”

he said. He expected the Fraser High School, in Hamilton, and the science department of the University of Waikato to be the first regular consumers in New Zealand.

In New Plymouth Mr O’Callahan’s announcement was welcomed by the chairman of the City Council gas committee (Mr R. J. Burkitt). He said he was pleased to have a firm date to work on. Mr Burkitt said the City Council's immediate plans for the conversion to natural gas in New Plymouth could be expected within a week, but early estimates were that the first customers would be on regular supply by early June. The engineer-manager of the gas department in New Plymouth (Mr A. Blackman) said tonight it was only a matter of completing converisions and preparing the first customers before natural gas would start being consumed on a regular basis in the city.