BLACKBALL MINE

Grey River Argus, 13 October 1941, Page 7

BLACKBALL MINE

Position Explained WELLINGTON, October 10. “It seems to me that there is an element in the community fortunately a very small .one, but nevertheless an extremely noisy on < e r - ' i which is most anxious to see tne Blackball venture turn out unsuccessfully for the st ate,” said the Minister for Mines (Mr Webb), tonight, when referring to recent criticism of the purchase of the Black nail Colliery as a State coal mine. He said he knew that he had the full cooperation of the management and the men in the effort to rehabilitate the colliery and to restore it, to some extent at any rate, to its former position as an asset to the community as a whole. x „ < “As far as the purchase of the mine by the State is concerned, there is absolutely nothing to hide, as mignc be inferred from some of the articles which have been_published.” said Mr Webb. “The whole of the assets of the company werg_.purchasert by the Government for £30,000, spbject to the customary legal apportionments. Before this price was agreed to I had the assets valued by competent, managers and engineers on a ‘sale fo r removal basis,’ and the report showed that th? removable plant was wortn at least £36,000 .(after allowing for cost of dismantling)’ plus the value of 29 cottages, mine buildings, and more than 1700 acres of freehold land, lhe problems associated with the mine itself were fully realised, but they were not, nor are they yet. consideied to be insuperable. Two issues were fundamental. Thev were, first, a better method of underground organisation and of employment of miners; and, second, prosecution ot the dip to see if any improved quality of coal could be secured in the held ahead, which was estimated by the Coal. Mines Council to contain about 2,000,000 tons of coal “The old Blackball mine produced 4,500,000 tons of coal, and when the company decided some years ago to open up in an entirely new place where the present workings were located, it was fully anticipated that coal of much the same arfality as existed in the old mine would be encountered. The company planned completely to mechanise the mine, and installed equipment which was unexcelled anywhere, at a cost of nearly £lOO,OOO. Unfortunately it met with difficulties which prevented it from obtaining the full benefit of mechanisation, and at the time the State took over, its workings were in coal which yielded a low percentage of lump coal on screening “Since the State acquired the minfl the output has steadily increased and improvements have been made underground,” said Mr Webb. “To do this the coal cutting machine had to ' be laid aside and fom while this further decreased the nroportion of lump coal. During the last few weeks in which criticism has been aroused a number of unavoidable difficulties have manifested themselves. First of all, the coal stored in the bins showed signs of heating, and it became essential to clear this out to avoid danger to the building and screening plant. Second, shipping space became limited owing to a technical fault in one of the vessels engaged in the coal trade from Grevmouth, and the urgent needs of the North Island gasworks made it imperative to utilise as much shipping space as was available for gas coal.

On top of this bad weather conditions recently delaved all steamers, and this prevented resumption of work at the mine until Tuesday of this week.” Mr Webb said that the decision to reduce the output to about 200 tons daily was reached after a full review of conditions likely to operate in the near future. Some alteration to the storage bins would have to be carried out, and it would still be necessary to concentrate on gas coal for shipping for some time. It was better from the point of view of the cost of production to have regular working which was also more satisfactory to the employees Even at 200 tons daily production had been increased by more than 56 ner cent, since the mine was taken over as a State colliery. "Blackball coal is verv good fuel for plants in which it can be used,” said the Minister, “but it takes time to place it on the market in increasing quantities. It cannot be done in a dav. and trials are often necessary i to satisfy consumers. While development work is going on in the mine the Department is engaged in a geological survey of another area near the present mine, and is studying the possibility of utilising Blackball slack coal either by itself or in mixture for the manufacture of briquettes.”