OUTCROP COAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 September 1942, Page 3

OUTCROP COAL

EXPANSION OF OUTPUT IN BRITAIN. SOME REPORTED HINDRANCES. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, September 21. If properly handled, Britain’s outcrop of coal seams will yield 10,000,000 tons a year and thus do much to make up the recent deficiency of 15,000,000 tons a year, says the “Daily Telegraph.” Some outcrops are at present yielding 30 tons daily a man, compared with an average of 191 cwt. a miner, working in pits. . Sixty thousand tons a week is at present being produced from 50 outcrop seams. Thirty others will soon be opening, and 60 to 70 others are being prospected. About 3000 workers are required to produce the potential maximum of 200,000 tons a week. The workers are merely drivers of mechanical grabs, tractors and cranes. Contractors complain that some Fuel Ministry officials are indifferent toward outcropping on a big scale, which they regard as freakish. There is also opposition from coal selling organisations within the mining industry, resulting in thousands of tons of coal being idle, while factories are clamouring for fuel.