PETROL FROM COAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1938, Page 7

PETROL FROM COAL

HYDROGENATION PROCESS POSSIBLE LOCAL INDUSTRY Renewed activity is reported with respect to a proposal which has been envisaged for some years now to produce petrol from coal at Kaitangata. The proposed scheme, which is a comprehensive one, is understood also to embrace a possible development of Kaitangata as a port, with the construction of a harbour at the mouth of the Molyneux river.

Although a development of this kind has been suggested for some time, it appears that recent activity has been directed more exclusively towards the possible extraction of petrol from coal by the process of hydrogenation, which has been carried on in England for some years. A form of prospectus, it is stated, has been submitted to the Mines Department, which has been requested to carry out a survey with the object of ascertaining the extent of the coal reserves at Kaitangata, which are at present being worked by the Kaitangata Coal Company.

It has been estimated that one ton of coal, by the process of hydro-gena-tion, may be made to produce 80 gallons of petrol, although this figure may possibly be somewhat optimistic. Valuable by-products also result from the manufacture of petrol by this means. The Minister of Mines (Mr P. C. Webb) was, in his pre-Ministerial days at least, an emphatic advocate of the introduction of the process in New Zealand, and on more than one occasion in the House of Representatives he has strongly urged the establishment of such a plant in the Dominion. In view of the fact that the southern part of the South Island is not likely, on present indications at any rate, to figure with any prominence in the search for flow oil that has been predicted by the Minister as a result of the machinery set up in the Petroleum Act, 1937, the possibility of the hydrogenation industry being established in Otago is interesting. One of the merits claimed by hydrogenation is the large amount of labour it requires and the employment it gives, so that a good many men would be absorbed in the event of the industry being established on anything like a large scale.