18-month wait for pipe

Press, 14 July 1982, Page 6

18-month wait for pipe

Construction of the liquefied petroleum gas pipeline from Lyttelton to Woolston would fake between 12 and 18 months. Mr Thomas Brown, a mechanical engineer with Shell Oil New Zealand. Ltd. told a Commission of Inquiry yesterday. Mr Brown was giving evidence during the third week of hearings into plans by Liquigas. Ltd. to transport L.P.G. through a pipeline from a tanker berthed at Lyttelton to a bulk storage depot in Woolston. Construction activities, which would be carried out concurrently, would include the building of two short tunnels between the Naval

Point reclamation and Corsair Bay. across the head of Magazine Bay. plus the installation of a submarine pipleine across Corsair Bay and Cass Bay. • Trenching, pipe installation. and back-filling would be carried out over the Port Hills with the reinstatement of disturbed areas, including regrading, replacement of topsoil, fertilising, grassing, retussocking, and refencing. Mr Brown said that the proposed pipeline would not be required if it was possible to place the bulk storage depot in Lyttelton and transfer L.P.G. by road or rail from the bulk storage depot to Christchurch.

Several reasons contributed to the decision not to locate the bulk storage at Lyttelton, according to Mr Brown. These included: the limited ..area of suitable zoned flat land; greater community acceptance of bulk storage in Woolston; better soil conditions in Woolston: greater distance necessary for road transport of L.P.G. either over the Port Hills or through the road tunnel; and that moving LP.G. through the tunnel would ultimately become impossible. The inquiry will continue today before’ Judge Skelton (chairman), Messrs G. W. Ensor, R. A. McLennan, and T. W. Smallfield..