SOUTH AFRICA'S MINERALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20603, 30 June 1930, Page 5

SOUTH AFRICA'S MINERALS.

COUNTRY'S FUEL RESOURCES PROPOSALS FOR RESEARCH. [rnOM OCR OWN' COniIESrON'BLNI. ] CAPETOWN, April 30. In moving the second reading of tho Fuel Research Bill in tho South African House of Assembly Mr. Oswald Pirow said the Government had long felt the necessity for adequate research into, and the_ study of, tho fuel resources of tho Union. In South Africa, whero they had no petroleum wells, no water power, no natural waterways, the question of cheap power was really one of fuel research and in particular of fuel utilisation. They had certain fuel reserves in their oil shales and vegetable raw material, but in the first instance the utilisation of their 250,000 million tons of coal would have to be inquired into. The inquiry became more urgent when they bore in tnind that their present production of coal reached only tho insignificant figure *of 14,000,000 "tons a year, which meant that at the present ra'to of consumption it would bo some 17,000 years before they exhausted .even their known reserves. When they took into consideration as well that they wero importing into the Union an annually increasing amount of mineral oil—for 1929 tho figure was 100,000,000 gallons, valued at something over £3,000,600 tho problem appeared more and more urgent. It was hoped that the work of the institute defined in the Liill would stimulate industrial expansion and make possible various industries, such as a coal by-products' industry, a gas industry and possibly an oil industry based on'their oil shales and vegetable raw materials, but very largely on their coal resources. Finally, they hoped that tho bill would make possible a chemical industry of specific products derived from coal.