FUTURE COAL SUPPLIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 12, 31 March 1947, Page 5

FUTURE COAL SUPPLIES

PAPER MILL SHUTS DOWN POSITION MAY DETERIORATE Owing to the curtailment of coal supplies from the Alison mine, the main source in the Waikato from which the Whakatane Paper Mills draws its deliveries, the management has decided to anticipate the normal Easter shutdown by some four days. This decision was made prior to the weekend and the mill ceased work yesterday morning at 8 a.m. and will not recommence operations until Tuesday of next week. In the • event of coal supplies still not being available the shutdown

period will be prolonged until

such time as sufficient fuel is in sight to warrant fulltime capacity.

As the only card and board manufacturing unit in the Dominion the position is a serious one which will have wide ramifications amongst numerous manufacturing industries. Incidentally the enforced shutdown prior to Easter means a loss of some 200 tons of board to clients in all parts of the Dominion. . The most serious aspect however will be after Easter, when if the miners dispute is still unsettled some 250 employees will be involved at the mill and Matahina pine-plantations. Coal supplies have been dwindling during the past few weeks and part of the Westport shipments which were to have augmented the stocks in Whakatane have now been diverted to the King’s Wharf station, Auckland, for generating purposes. The management is endeavouring to avoid putting off any of its workers -during the stepped-up Easter closedown, and to that end has arranged to temporarily suspend its waterpumping unit which is situated in the Bay of Plenty Power Board’s area and to divert that power to the Pasting Department, which it is hoped will be kept at capacity, thus enabling a large percentage of the .staff to remain occupied.

Everything possible will be done to tide over the position until Easter, but in the words of the acting-man-ager, if the strike still makes the early delivery of coal supplies impossible, the management will only be able to retain the services of a few key-men until the position . rights itself.