COAL CARBONISATION

Northern Advocate, 11 June 1931, Page 6

COAL CARBONISATION

NEW INDUSTRY OPENED. (Special to “Northern Advocate.”) AUCKLAND, This Day. At the official opening ceremony of the coal carbonisation plant at Eotowaro yesterday, Mr W. D. Holgate, chairman of directors of Waikato Carbonisation, Ltd., said the plant ■was the first of its kind Tn the southern hemisphere. The same process, however, was in use in Germany, Canada, Greece and Denmark. The establishment of the works was a new and most important development in the coal industry of New Zealand and one which promised to revolutionise the use of the Dominion's lignite coal. Mr Holgate detailed the history of the project for utilising the large quantities of unsaleable slack produced by the Waikato mine, and mentioned by the British and German engineers responsible for the installation of the plant. The total cost, he said, had been £145,000. The four coalmining companies interested had formed a subsidiary company, Waikato Carbonisation, Ltd., in September, 1929, with a capital of £IOO,OOO. Of this they had themselves subscribed £BO,OOO. Later ( £70,000 worth of debentures had been created and offered to the shareholders, who had shown their confidence by taking up £43,550 worth. Bo far the general public had not been invited to subscribe any of the capital, but the balance of £26,450 worth of debentures would now be offered for public subscription.

After referring to the slack coal problem, Mr Holgate said that in the past fortnight the briquettes had been tried, with most gratifying results, in locomotives and otherwise, and had proved smokeless. Tests with experimental specimens had shown that they would stand storage for long periods without disintegrating. Thus, if they wore used by the (Railway Department, there would be no need for it to import Newcastle coal for its reserve stock. There was no need to emphasise the importance ot the new fuel in industry. 'He believed that before long another gathering like the present would bo held to mark the duplication of the plant.