Ak. Gas ‘out and selling to industry’

Press, 19 July 1979, Page 19

Ak. Gas ‘out and selling to industry’

PA Auckland Auckland Gas Company, Ltd, domestic sales of gas rose 14 per cent in the first quarter of the current year, the chairman (Mr A. G. Wilson) said at the annual meeting. Over all sales-volume rose 7.5 per cent. Maui gas, and assurances that the pipeline will eventually be extended to Auckland had enabled the company to get out again, and sell to industry', he said. During the past two years, the Government’s energy organisation had expanded into a very large Department of Energy, “but when it comes to supplying a proven market, that has been waiting patiently since 1974 for natural gas, nothing is forthcoming,” Mr Wilson said. The pipe-line extension,

I from Huntly to Auckland, , would possibly take two ; years to build, "from the date . that a decision was made , whether to use the existing 750 mm pipe, which was in : store, or to wait while tenders were called for a smailer-diameter pipe. I “One feels that, at times, our Ministers, and departl mental officials are being ; diverted by the billion-dollar , projects presented to them by the oil industry to the , stage that the bread-and-but-ter markets on the homei front are given scant consid- ’ eration,” he said. ; The restrictions to gas supplied over the last five ; years were due to the limi- ■ tations of the three treat- ■ ment plants at Kapuni, where the 47 per cent car- , bon dioxide content of Ka-

puni gas was removed. When Maui gas, with only a 13 per cent carbon dioxide ; content, was processed through the treatment plants, the quantity of treated gas would be in- . creased about four times. Gas supplies to Auckland would then be governed by the carrying capacity of the present 200 mm diameter pipeline. “If our projections are attained, even with additional compressors on the line, we ■ will have reached its optimum throughput by 1983,” said Mr Wilson.