Notes

Abstract

THE important question of supplementing supplies of mineral oil by the distillation of eannel coal and allied bituminous minerals has been recently investigated by two separate committees. Whilst the possible production from home sources can amount to but a fraction of the total requirements of motor-spirit, fuel-oil, etc., yet such quantity as might be furnished by the raw materials which are available would undoubtedly tell appreciably in reduction of the tonnage at present required for the importation of oil. That large quantities of oil can be obtained from such material cannot be questioned, but with the reduction in labour, particularly at the mines, and with other demands for constructive material which would be required for the erection of retorts and refineries, the problem of utilising these sources must be dependent on the most economical use of available labour and material under existing conditions. The Government Committee presided over by Lord Crewe considers that a largely increased production cannot be obtained without interfering with other not less important industries (Cd. 9198). The Committee appointed last February by the Institution of Petroleum Technologists has considered the question as an immediate war measure, and as a permanent commercial undertaking and a measure of reconstruction, and in an interim report urges the War Cabinet to lay down a definite policy as to the relative national vakie of coal and oil, and the provision of the necessary labour, raw materials, and transport; to grant facilities for the erection at suitable centres of plant to those who are prepared to find the capital; to establish at once an experimental station where retorts to a design provisionally approved by the institution may be tested, or, failing such a Government station, to grant all necessary and reasonable facilities to the institution for erecting a station of its own. Whilst present conditions may determine that operations on a commercial scale are not immediately justified, there can be little question as to the economic soundness of such experimental investigations as are required to establish an oil industry as a measure of reconstruction which would be wholly beneficial to the nation.