TNAG-0093-FCO40-129-Water-supplies-1968 — Page 145

Ed (2829)

2.

Reference....

enabling water to be taken aboard ships rapidly in

large quantities. Of these only two are in Europe

Amsterdam and Southampton. In Amsterdam, which probably has the best installations of this kind in

the world, it takes four to five days to load a 60,000 ton tanker (= 15 m. gallons).

5. At present it would cost approximately £1,500 per day to hire a 60,000 ton tanker. Assuming water

could be lifted fron a country not too distant from Hong Kong the economics of the operation might be as

follows:

5 days loading, 5 days steaming, 5 days discharge.

On this basis the cost at present works out at 27/6d per ton (one ton = =224 gallons). The Crown Agents mentioned that they have recently been going into this question on behalf of the Gibraltar Government and the tanker owners with whom they have been discussing the matter had commented that it would be actually cheaper to ship lemonade or beer

in bottles.

6. In the 1963 drought Hong Kong chartered 23 tankers for a full year (July to June) each carrying 3 m. gallons per trip. At that time, of course, they were involved in only short voyages, simply by the Pearl River. This meant that four tankers a day were able to discharge water in Kong Kong (a total of 20 m. gallons per day). The total imported by this means over the twelve-month period was 4,288 m. gallons.

One of the problems we would now have to encounter is that there are not enough new tankers building built, consequently we would have to use tankers that have already carried oil. There would therefore be a cleaning problem. The Crown Agents thought there was no doubt if we were prepared to pay the right price we could find tankers - but the price would mean the cost of water would be something like

27/6 per ton landed in Hong Kong.

8.

The Crown Agents thought that the Navy have

only about three water tankers. Mr. Carter reported that Mr. Campbell (Ministry of Defence) had told us this morning, in response to our recent enquiry, that the Navy could make one water tanker available which they estimated could fetch 24 m. gallons a month from the Philippines (or a similar haul).

Dracones,