NEW ZEALAND’S COAL SUPPLY

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3603, 16 August 1912, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND’S COAL SUPPLY

SOME INTERESTING OPINIONS'

[PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

AUCKLAND, Aug. 15. Members of Parliament who took part in a discussion in the House of Representatives on ’Tuesday evening expressed the opinion that there is a-danger that New Zealand’s coal supply within the course of the next 50 years.

’The opinion of many competent to judge in Auckland, however, seems to be more optimistic. ‘‘During 13 years we have exhausted approximately G3O acres of coal-bear-ing strata- for a yield of 1,864,000 tons of coal,” stated the chairman of the Taupiri Coal Company during the course of his last annual report. The company holds' mineral rights for 16,495 acres, and presuming that the output of 250,000 tons per annum is maintained, we have enough to last for 220 years, or, if comparatively inaccessible country near Kunilmi Lake lie omitted, for 200 years. At 275,000. tons por annum the life of our mines would bo 180 years, and at 300,000 tons per annum 170 years.” “There is no doubt that in the north good bitumous coal is scarce,” said Air Holgatc, managing director of the Northern Coal Company, in answer to inquiries. “Up to the present no very extensive deposits of that quality have been found. So far as our company is concerned, however, there is no uneasiness as to coal resources, but all the same our deposits are not equal to the deposits of bitumous coal in the South Island. We know very little yet of our coal resources in the north, for prospecting has been limited to Whangarci and Kawakawa districts. In the Waikato, however, largo deposits of coal have been found and promise to yield well.”