Milk may run out soon and gas threatened

Press, 15 November 1977, Page 1

Milk may run out soon and gas threatened

Hundreds of thousands of litres of milk may be wasted if petrol tanker drivers do not resume normal deliveries of fuel oil to milk treatment stations in Christchurch today.

Also, the Christchurch Gas Company might not be able to meet demand if the weather turns cold.

Christchurch motorists could fill their cars yesterday by shopping around the service stations, but their task may be more difficult today. The After Hours Petrol Service, Ltd. by Latimer Square, had one pump serving super grade petrol last evening. Earlier in the day Blue Star Taxis in Moorhouse Avenue reserved one pump for customer use and allowed each customer a maximum of $5 worth. The firm hopes to have enough petrol in its other pump to run taxis for at least another day without any difficulty. Some suburban garages which were closed most of the week-end were still selling unlimited supplies of super grade petrol to motorists in the afternoon. Many will still have petrol available today if they are not rushed by motorists. If fuel oil is not delivered, Canterbury Dairy Farmers, Ltd, will not be able to continue processing,

because boiler oil fuel is essential for the generation of steam for processing.

The company, which supplies more than 80 per cent of Christchurch consumers’ milk, was able to process milk yesterday only by manually transferring diesel fuel from its vehicles.

The other supplier of town milk. Metropolitan Milk Treatment, Ltd, has not been affected yet by the drivers’ strike because it has sufficient fuel in stock.

The chairman of directors of Canterbury Dairy Farmers (Mr E. F. Stokes) said that the manual transfer of diesel fuel yesterday had enabled milk processing to meet normal consumer requirements for a further 24 hours, after which emergency fuel alternatives would not be available. “Some consumer inconvenience may occur during the next 24 hours because of the delay in milk being made available to vendors for delivery,” said Mr Stokes. The Christchurch Gas Company was not able to

produce enough gas. to meet demand if the drivers’ dispute continued, said the general manager (Mr C. Kennedy) last evening. Gas supplies would last a week of fine weather, but a cold snap would make the supply “very critical.”

Petrol tanker drivers employed by an oil company which had suspended its drivers usually delivered naptha to the Gas Company twice a day, said Mr • Kennedy. Naptha was used to supplement production from the coal plant which, even in summer, could not produce enough gas to meet demand, he said.

Since BP drivers went on strike on Thursday, the company had made maximum use of coal to produce gas, but the stock of naptha was very. low. Mr Kennedy said the Gas Company was classified as an essential service and would receive naptha supplies during a strike—but the drivers had been suspended and were making no deliveries at all. “There is no such thing as an essential service,” he said.