A changing challenge

Press, 21 February 1978, Page 21

A changing challenge

Public reluctance to take up shares in newly formed companies is not a recent problem — the original directors of the Christchurch Gas Company had some difficulty in 1862 in disposing of 1000 shares of $lO each. Christchurch was then little more than a small country town and doubtless the misgivings of the investing public had some foundations.

A different aspect became apparent in 1977 with some speculators purchasing shares apparently motivated by the belief that if the company is forced out of business there will be a lucrative capital profit to be made. These are just some of the problems faced by the company in its 114 years of operation. It all began on October 27. 1857, when a preliminary meeting was held in Christchurch to discuss a proposal to form a gas company to provide the town with better lighting. At a further meeting the following month, chaired by Mr John Hall, the formation of this company was agreed and in May 1863 a Memorandum of Association and Articles were adopted, the company registered, and he first meeting of directors was held.

The company secured a

one-acre site in the southeastern part of the town, where the works stand today, and set to work to build a gas making plant. At this time, the railway was under construction between Christchurch and Ferrymead, and tunnellers were boring to Lyttelton. Although the Ferrymead railway was completed in December 1863, the tunnel was not opened until Christmas, 1867. so meanwhile bricks and ironwork for the plant and gas coal had to be sailed over the treacherous Sumner bar to the Ferrymead wharf. Notwithstanding a gold rush in early 1864, progress on the new works was extremely rapid and gas was first distributed later that year. The capacity of the first gasholder was IO.OOOcu. ft and when gas was first produced there were only two or three miles of main laid along certain of the city streets. During the first year of operation 2.sMcu. ft of gas was delivered by the company. By 1898, the company risen to 40M cu. ft supplied through 35 miles of main to more than 1400 consumers, and the construction of a further three gasholders had by then increased storage capacity to 450,000 cu. ft. By 1898, the company owned 77 miles of mains, distributing some 100 M cu. ft annually, with a peak production in the order of 500,00 cu. ft per day.

During this period, kerosene street lamps gave way to gas lights, which by 1913 reached an all time high of 1335 consuming over 13M cu. ft gas per year. But within a year gas lighting began to decline and on April 1, 1918. gas lights ceased to burn altogether. The early years of this century saw a rapid expansion of the gas industry in Chrsitchurch, and further land was acquired on Moorhouse Avenue. A further gasholder was constructed in 1901. increasing storage to IM cu. ft. In 1901. land was also acquired at the corner of Worcester Street and Oxford Terrace. The building erected and occupied the following year served as company head office until 1972 when it was sold to the A.M.P. Society and demolished.

When the city engineer Mr Arthur Dudley Dobson, had installed a tar still in the council yard, crude tar from the gas works was trundled to this plant in wooden barrels atop a horse-drawn cart. The installation of a lead-bath still in 1926 at the gas works replaced this primitive method of tar disposal. During the depression years, plant maintenance had fallen badly into arrears and before any renovation programme was under way. import restrictions. followed by war, made plant renewal almost hopeless; and from 1942 expanding local industry produced a rapid growth of gas load.

Thrown on its own resources. the company began to design and build its own plant. The Blue Water gas sets were almost defunct, so to replace them dual dilution producers were erected. These operated on a 50-50 coke-lignite mixture thus releasing coke for the ever-hungry domestic market. The annual load continued to grow, reaching 695 M cu. ft by 1949, for commercial users were looking more and more to gas for their space heating and the winter peak that year reached 2.67 M cu. ft. By the spring of 1955, the No 3 Retort House began to crack, both figuratively and physically under the strain and it became a race against time to commission the new intermittent vertical carbonising plant.

On June 2, 1956, a whole era came to an end as the first coal charge dropped silently into the waiting chambers of the new carbonising plants. There were teething troubles to be sure, but nothing compared to the tribulations of the previous months of keeping the old plant operative in its dying days.

In 1959, the annual output reached 862 M cu. ft, with peak days approaching 4M cu. ft. Further storage became imperative and in October, 1960, a contract was let to Clayton and Co., England, for a 2.5 M cu. ft gasholder. This is the No 7 spiral holder close to Moorhouse Avenue, and is the largest ever built in New Zealand.

The history of the Gas Company is never static. Since the commissioning

of the big gasholder in 1963 there has been a gradual but steady increase in gas output and for the year ended March 31. 1977, the output reached 1,402,189,000 cu. ft.

New business is constantly being achieved although the nature of the load changes from year to year — domestic percentages have droppea to 15.25 per cent while commercial and heavy in-

dustry have increased io 84.75 per cent of total

In September, 1973. the oil crisis hit the world and in New Zealand the effect was immediately felt. A company plan envisaging a gradual change over from coal to an oil-based operation had to be abandoned almost over night as the development of the reformer techniques were no longer viable.

Today, the gas company’s carb'onising plant commissioned in 1956 is obsolete and it is difficult to secure spare parts and refractories for its maintenance, as it is now one of the last such plants .n operation throughout the world. In the meantime, however, it will be kept in operation regardless of the cost, but it can never be added to or duplicated.