POOR GAS SUPPLY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 16722, 24 April 1920, Page 7

POOR GAS SUPPLY.

BAD COAL THE REASON. POSITION SHOULD IMPROVE. The quality of the gas supplied in New Plymouth during the last two or three weeks has been particularly poor. Abuse has been far mure prevalent than praise on the part of household consumers who have been able to do their cooking only with the utmost difficulty. A complete failure of the supply on account of shortage ot coaL could have been understood, but an apparently half-hearted, very prolonged struggle for existence puzzled a good many of the users. "When approached on the matter today, the chairman of tho Gas Company said tho trouble lay in tho quality of the coal being used. The works have always, been supplied with coal from the State mines at Greymoutii, but for the last three weeks they have been forced to use Stockton unscreened coal and it has been found not at all suitable. Aboqt the end of March no State coal was obtainable and a small quantity of the Stockton was forwarded to enable the works to carry on until the State coal could be sent. Tho latter did not come and in the meantime the company resorted to the use of petroleum from the Moturoa bores to help maintain some sort of a gas supply. About 20 barrels of crude oil have been used. The Coal Trade Committee representative (Mr. A. L. Humphries) has been keeping the works supplied with some coal from local stocks recently and has provided for the works to keep going till Tuesday or Wednesday next; Before then the long-expected State coal should be available. The steamer Kini is duo from Greymouth, via Wellington, tomorrow with 200 tons of State coal for the New Plymouth gasworks, and about 200 tons more for the Hawera and Eltham gasworks. This 200 tons will maintain the Now Plymouth gas supply for some weeks, so an improvement in the quality of the gas should be noticeable after the next few days.