OIL AND COAL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20110, 31 March 1928, Page 14 (Supplement)

OIL AND COAL

DISCUSSION IN AUSTRALIA EFFECT ON THE MINES. SYDNEY, March 19. When periodical discussions crop up about thc coming world shortage of coal people often fail to realise what a metamorphosis has taken place in recent years in the balance of coal consumption. Startling figures have been quoted by Sir Frederick Waley, who is interested in the coalfields in thc southern districts of New South Wales. Tremendous inroads have been made on the Australian coal industry by tho use of oil, and the trade that has been lost can never be recovered. These are facts which New South Wales coal trade is facing. The Orient and the P. and O. Lines took until recently 140,000 tons of coal every year. Both arc now using oil. AU ships of Norwegian and Swedish companies trading in Australian waters are oil-driven. If they were coal burners they would be able to consume 70,000 tons every year from our mines. Even coastal ships are taking to oil. We arc experiencing the same slump in consumption that was experienced by thc South Wales mines when thc British Navy switched over to oil, resulting in a lessened consumption of South Wales anthracite of 3,000,000 tons every year. Much the same can be said of the American Navy. It will readily be seen what huge cuts have been made in coal consumption all over the world, and naturally I this is having effect locally, with the result that the producers are more than concerned—they are “panicky. Miners, likewise, arc slowly realising that they have grounds for perturbation. They, however, are imbued with thc sublime faith that there will be a conversion from oil back to coal again. Producers, on the other hand, think that thc only hope of recapturing any of the trade they have lost is by developing the use of powdered coal for oil burning ships.