MATAURA LIGNITE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26629, 27 November 1947, Page 6

MATAURA LIGNITE

INDUSTRIAL POSSIBILITIES PROJECTED VISIT OF GERMAN SCIENTISTS Daily Times Special Service INVERCARGILL, Nov. 26. Two prominent German scientists, Dr F. S. W. Danulat and Dr Eric Bruggerman, will probably visit Southland to make an investigation of the possibilities of the Mataura lignite fields,_ according to a report of the chairman, Judge Acheson, to an executive meeting of the Southland Regional Planning Council, to-day. Dr Danulat is the inventor of a process of extracting gas from brown coal and Dr Bruggerman is the designer of a briquetting plant which is at present being used in Victoria. Both these men are in Australia working for the Australian Government, but the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research will try to obtain a visit *to New Zealand next year.

“These men are world authorities capable of advising us in New Zealand as they are doing at present in Australia,” said Judge Acheson. Reporting on the lignite he said that as far as carbonisation went the main need was for a report from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research based on tests made with a mobile drill. A report on quantity, quality, moisture content, and a variation on analysis was needed. This also applied to the second heading of gasification. “ Waikato and Taranaki are both pushing to get carbonisation and gasification of coal measures there,” said Mr Acheson. “But it seems that we should get preference in Southland because we could use lignite, and because there is such a large quantity of it available and it is so close to the surface.”

""As far as the use of lignite for fuel was concerned Mataura lignite was too good. There was plenty in other places in Southland, however, as at Ashers Siding and places near Invercargill. It was decided that the matter of Mataura lignite should be kept before the Planning Council, the Department of Works, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Members of Parliament for Southland, and the Lignite Utilisation Committee.