LIQUID FUEL SUPPLIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24255, 25 March 1940, Page 6

LIQUID FUEL SUPPLIES

AUSTRALIAN RESOURCES MEANS OF INCREASING PRODUCTION (From Our Own , Correspondent) SYDNEY, Mar. 13. A survey of proposals submitted to the Federal Government indicates that Australia could produce from domestic resources at least 70,000,000 gallons of liquid fuel a year, about one-fifth of the present annual petrol requirements. At present, production, including the' planned output’ of the new shale ■ works at Glen Davis, is little more than 15,000,000 gallons a year. If the Government proceeds with a plan to ration petrol, it may have to consider the rapid development of Australian substitutes. Previously it has avoided developing home resources mainly because in most cases an excise concession would be required to equalise costs with those of imported fuel. As.against this, there would.be a balancing benefit arising from increased employment in Australia, and the retention in Australia of 4s in every £ 1 now sent overseas for Pe Some of the projects designed to increase national production of liquid fuel might receive scant notice in time of peace. Faced-with the threat of a reduction of petrol imports for the purpose of conserving dollar exchange; and confronted by shipping difficulties caused by a world shortage of tankers, Australia may now have to revert to measures which would have been scorned before the war came to complicate trade and industrial economy^ The Newnes shale deposits, about 100 miles west of Sydney, could produce 30.000. gallons a year. The present planned output is only 10,000,000 gallons. Baerami. near Muswellbrook, 190 miles north of Sydney, has shale deposits considerably larger than Newnes, and is capable of an estimateo. yield of 30,000,000 gallons a year. Power alcohol from sugar molasses is another source, and production could be stepped up from 1,000,000 gallons a year to 10,000,000 or 12,000,000 at practically no expense because distilling plant is available. Production of benzol from gasworks and coke-ovens could be increased from 4,000,000 to 10.000. gallons. The cost of fuel from these sources would average about Is 3d a gallon. Australia’s imports of petrol in the last financial year were derived from Dutch East Indies, 218,000,000 gallons; United States. 50,000,000; Bahrein Islands (Persian Gulf), 42,000,000; Iran, 34.000. British North Borneo, 1,500,000—a total of 345,500,000 gallons, In addition, 27,800,000 gallons of imported crude petroleum, refined into petrol at Clyde, near Sydney, took the total made available to Australia to 373.000. gallons. Local production of fuel oil in the same year included about 4,000,000 gallons of benzol and 1,500.000 gallons of power alcohol from sugar molasses —little more than 1 per cent, of the total Australian consumption. By the end of this year Australia should be producing 10,000,000 gallons of petrol from shale. 5,000,000 gallons of benzol, and 2,500,000 gallons of power alcohol, a total of 17,500,000 gallons, or 4 per cent, of the total consumption.