PETROL FROM COAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 209, 2 August 1935, Page 14

PETROL FROM COAL

PROCESS DESCRIBED. WELLINGTON, Aug.* 2. A close watch on overseas development of the process of extracting petrol from coal is being maintained by the Mines Department and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research for the New Zealand Government. It is calculated, however, that to meet the present requirements of the country for fuel and lubricating oils, including oil for bunkering overseas shipping, would require a capital outlay ot at least £12,000,000. In "England considerable progress lias been made by one company in the making of petrol from coal at Dillingham. A British Official Wireless message published yesterday announced that the company had made 7.500,000 gallons and sold 6,000,000 gallons of firstgrade petrol since April. The company employs a process first developed in Germany about a quarter of a century ago. This is known as the hydrogenation process, in the operation of which coal is ground fine and mixed with a heavy oil to form a plastic substance, being then subjected to hydrogen gas at great pressure and intense heat. The hydrogen gas combines with the coal substance, changing it from a solid to a liquid. This, when distilled, gives petrol of firstgrade, needing no more blending or treatment. „ . , , Over four-fifths of the weight of coal taken for treatment is recovered in petrol, sn that about 200 gallons of petrol are manufactured from every ton of coal processed. As. however. the power and boat requirements of the operating plant are so high, about another ton and a half of coal is used in manufacture, so that every ton of coal employed in the hydrogenation process returns about 80 gallons of petrol. The Billingliam plant, when established, was estimated to be capable of using 1000 tons of coal a day, giving employment to 2500 miners. Tt was expected that direet employment would be provided for 7000 persons and indirect, work for 5000.

The capital required for producing 30,000,000 gallons a year was £3,500,000, and the estimated cost of production was 7d a gallon, this not leaving any provision for interest on the capital invested ot fot obsolecerice of the plant. The BiiTingliam plant was expected to provide for about 3 per cent of the petrol requirements of Groat Britain and use less than 1 per cent of the coal output. The hydrogenation process, though a stimulus to the coal-mining industry when employed on a large sen'e, is’also of substantial assistance to the petroleum producers, as it can be used to convert heavy petroleum oils and tar-oil products like creosote into petrol, absorbing many of the by-products of the petroleum industry for which tlie market is at present not large.

Mr W. Donovan, Government analyst, surveyed the prospects of establishing such an industry in New Zealand, last year, in an address to the New Zealand section of the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland. He considered that the production cost of petrol by this method would be about lOd a gallon in New Zealand. Heavy tariff protection would be necessary to establish hydrogenation of coal as ail industry. There would have to bo entire freedom from excise duty.

As it cost £3.500,000 to establish a plant for an annual output of 30,,000,000 gallons in England, ho calculated that it would cost £12,000.000 for a factory capable of filling the average requirements of about 60,000,000 gallons a year in New Zealand. His calculation was tlrat 1.000,000 tons of coal a year would lie required, giving employment in the mines, while considerable labour would he employed in the working of the hydrogenation plant. Tho Government, however, would he deprived of revenue now derived from petrol. “It would appear that all the petrol and fuel oil. hut not the lubricating oils, required for this country could Iks produced in New Zealand by hydrogenation of coal, hut at considerable cost ; ” he said. It is believed that the British Government is giving the company a subsidy of 4d a gallon each year for nine years. The product is distributed and marketed by the oil companies.