Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-27
NATURAL GAS FAMINE
Within Three Years Predicted by
the Philadelphia Company.
1T CANNOT SUPPLY ENOUGH FUEL
To Run & Large Concern Like Carnegie,
Phipps & Co.'S Mills.
THE BUSINESS IN COURT

Natural gas is soon to be thing of the
past, according to the ideas of the Philadel-
phia Company. Yesterday the company
fled its answer to the equity suit of Car
negie, Phipps & Co. to restrain the Phila-
delphia Company from shutting off the gas
at the firms iron mills In the bill the
Philadelphia Company claims the gas sup
ply is rapidly failing and places three years
as the limit Of existence of this natural
fuel
In fact the whole bill is taken up in a
discussion of the question Of gas supply.
Much of 1t is matter that gas companies
have generally claimed people did not need
to know, and that there was no need to be
alarmed about the supply. The statements
have always been that while old territory
may become exhausted, enough new pro-
ductive lands were being discovered to in
sure supply for years.
The Philadelphia Company, in its an
swer to the present suit, admits its inability
to furnish the mills without cutting off hum
dreds of smaller consumers, and expresses
the fear that within the next three years
the supply may be entirely exhausted. The
document is an exhaustive one and deals
with the question in nearly all its phases,
from the organization of the company with
Its capital OF S100, 900 until the present with
its capital increased to over $7,000,0 900.
Among other things the defendants say:
The plaintiffs mills at the time this suit
was filed consumed about one-fifth of our
entire supply, and we found 1t was imprac-
ticable to continue the contract. The de-
fendant company has spent $3,000000 in &C.
curing new nelds and laying new mains in
order
ent supply is only about one-third what it
was three years ago, and the supply to the
plaintiffs mills can only be maintained by
cutting Off hundreds of smaller customers,
which the defendant company does not feel
justified in doing as it never agreed to fur
nish gas perpetually to the mills.
At the date of the bill the plaintiffs had
voluntarily changed large portion of their
mill SO as to adapt it to the use of coal, and
the relative cost that would be occasioned
by them in their work. by the use of coal, Is
much less than that which would be occa-
stoned by smaller consumers in case they
were cut OF. The defendant company de-
nies the ownership of large and undeveloped
fields, as alleged In the platntins bill On
the contrary its fields have been developed
wherever there were reasonable prospects
of Obtaining gas.
Since the shortage came the defendants
have not engaged in supplying gas in new
territory, but have confined their attention
to old customers. The company's lines ex-
tend many miles from the gas field, through
the cities before the plaintiffs mills are
reached. Small consumers along the line
are more favoraDly located, and it is impos-
sible to furnish an adequate supply at the
works without cutting Off those who are
along the line. These smaller consumers
have refused voluntarily to do without gas,
and deny the company's right to carry It
past them and deliver 1t to the plaintiffs
who are less favorably located.
The existence of supply of gas for the
plaintiffs alone in the future is altogether
problematical and is Furthermore dependent
upon the exercise of the highest personal
skill, knowledge and enterprise on the part
Of the defendant company in discovering
new fields, and its further ability to expend
vast amounts of money in acquiring new
the natural gas business is such that it is i'm
possible to know that even in three years
from the present there will be natural gas
within piping distance OF the city Of Pitts.
burg sufficient to supply plaintiffs mills.