LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES
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estimated to take about two years to complete. Lastly, Phase III will cover private sector buildings and will take about three years to complete.
Main electricity statistics and sales figures are at Appendix 36.
Gas
Gas is widely used throughout the territory for domestic, commercial and industrial purposes. Two main types of fuel gas are available: Towngas, distributed by Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited (HKCG); and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), supplied by major oil companies based in Hong Kong namely Shell, Mobil, Esso, Caltex, Hong Kong Oil, China Resources and British Petroleum. Towngas is mainly supplied as a manu- factured gas, but for some customers substitute natural gas (SNG) is supplied under the Towngas trademark. The constituents of LPG are butane and propane mixed in approximate proportions of 75 and 25 per cent respectively.
The total number of fuel gas customers in Hong Kong is around 1.7 million. In 1990, Towngas had 66 per cent of the total fuel gas sold in energy terms and LPG 34 per cent.
HKCG manufactures Towngas at two works, one located at Ma Tau Kok and the other in the Tai Po Industrial Estate. Both use naphtha as a feedstock. They currently have output capacities of 3.6 and 2.8 million cubic metres per day respectively. In order to meet the increasing demand for Towngas, HKCG has started the phase II development at its gas production plant in Tai Po. This will double the capacity of the plant to 8.4 million cubic metres per day when completed in 1991.
Towngas is distributed through an integrated distribution system to about 753 thousand customers for cooking and heating purposes. The mains network extends to the urban areas of Hong Kong Island including Aberdeen, Repulse Bay, Stanley and Ap Lei Chau, Kowloon and many new towns in the New Territories, including Sha Tin, Tai Po, and Tsing Yi Island. HKCG is currently constructing a 90-kilometre network of 600 millimetre-diameter transmission pipeline in the New Territories. The new transmission line is designed to operate at elevated pressure and will provide an additional 0.3 million cubic metres of 'line pack' storage capacity.
SNG is distributed by HKCG under the Towngas trademark from temporary plants located in Yuen Long and Tuen Mun specifically operated to serve these two new town areas in the New Territories. It is expected that the plants will be decommissioned in 1991-2 when the high transmission pipeline reaches these two areas.
LPG is imported into Hong Kong by sea. About 79 per cent of total sales is distributed to customers, via dealer networks, in portable cylinders. The remaining 21 per cent is distributed through piped gas systems from bulk LPG storage and vaporiser installations which are located in or adjacent to the developments being supplied.
Currently there are about 378 LPG dealers operating within the territory. Additionally, 23 LPG site operators manage 373 bulk storage installations under government licensing arrangements. Altogether there are 955 thousand LPG customers.
In 1982, the government introduced a piped gas policy to discourage further growth in the use of gas cylinders in domestic dwellings; and at the same time began a programme of encouraging the upgrading of sub-standard gas water heaters. The percentage of domestic dwellings now using cylinders has fallen to less than 40 per cent in 1990 and the number of upgraded gas water heaters amounts to some 50 000. Fatalities arising from fuel gas incidents apart from suicide cases have been reduced to zero.