Ministers at odds over use of gas — Labour

Press, 13 April 1984, Page 12

Ministers at odds over use of gas — Labour

PA Wellington The Minister of Energy. Mr Birch, appears to be at odds with his Cabinet colleague, the Minister of Works and Development, Mr Friedlander, over the use of natural gas, according to two Labour members of Parliament.

“We have the sorry sight of Mr Friedlander fighting for a multi-million dollar gas liquids extraction plant in Taranaki, while Mr Birch wants the same gas for electricity production at Huntly,” said the Opposition energy spokesmen, Messrs R. J. Tizard and D. J. Butcher.

“The natural gas that Mr Birch needs for Huntly is the same gas Mr Friedlander wants for Taranaki."

“This is yet another sign of the lack of foresight that has plagued the ‘think big’ strategy,” they said. “It is no secret why Mr Friedlander wants the extraction plant. His seat, New Plymouth is highly marginal. ‘Think Big’ projects there are starting to wind down with a conse-

quent drop in employment opportunities. He is desperate to appear to be creating additional jobs so that he can hold on to his seat.”

A company studying the options for liquids extraction, Glico, was reported as believing that liquefied petroleum gas for export would be the most desirable product of the next generation of natural gas plants, they said.

“Mr Friedlander has no concern for the C.N.G. motorist faced with a reduction in distance for each filling, which removing the highly volatile gas liquids would do.”

Mr Birch had “trapped himself into digging up the Waikato to study coal for New Zealand Steel’s expansion at Glenbrook,” they said.

“If it proves difficult to get their coal from the proposed Ohinewai mine or if that coal is too expensive, as a recent consultant’s report appears to indicate, he will have to consider diverting coal from the Huntly mines,” they said.

If that happened, the Huntly power station would be forced to burn natural gas.

The Government said it was “utter nonsense" for the Opposition to claim the Huntly power station and proposed gas liquids extraction plans represented competing demands for the same natural gas.

Messrs Birch and Friedlander said that the Labour comments were “laughable.”

Natural gas is very care-

fully allocated, and there is no disagreement between us concerning its future use.' they said. The Huntly power station was intended to bum coal, not gas. "It will use gas only in its early stages and the gas liquids proposal, which is still being investigated, would use different components from the gas stream." The Ministers said no decisions had yet been taken on the gas liquids proposal, in anv case.