NEW OIL TANKS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 37, 12 August 1930, Page 11

NEW OIL TANKS

ERECTED AT LOWER HUTT

PIPE-LINE FROar> POINT HOWARD •

During the past few months a large number of workmen have been 'busily:

engaged in erecting a new .-..main bulk installation for tho Vacuum.•■ Oil. :Com<; pany Pty., Ltd., on the industrial.■■area facing Sea View road, '" .;''

The new depot has been built, on' an area of 71 acres, ■ and includes two motor spirit tanks, each witli a: eapa-: city of 750,000 gallons, a kerosene'tank' with a capacity of 150,000 gallons,, three | intermediate tanks on steel towers with a capacity of 15,000 gallons, each-, and also numerous brick and concrete buildings comprising pump house, • foamite house, office and laboratory,- gaiiag6, stands for filling motor tank: wagons, and a railway siding for .filling rail tank cars. ■ The tanks are connected by an 8-inch pipeline with the Point Howard Wharf, at which the tankers will berth. -A first • visit was paid to this whar on Saturday by the Vacuum Oil Company's tanker Plume, and a large supI ply of motor spirit was pumped into tho new tanks. The capacity of the pipe-line between tho ship and the land installation is 50,000 gallons per hour. . :

The equipment is of the-most mod crn type throughout, tho two large tanks"being the first in" New Zealand to be equipped with Wiggins's "floater breather" roofs, which almost fit od the surface of tho petrol, and risi and fall according to the height of the petrol in the tanks. The foamite house is the heart of tho fire-fighting plant, ,and is capable of pouring imniense quantities of fire-quenching foam upon- the contents of all tanks at a few seconds' notice.

This large and expensive installation is timely evidence of thJs important company's faith in tho future prosperity of New Zealand, and in the advantages of Wellington as a distributing centre.