§ Mr. Beaneyasked the Minister of Power if, in view of the importance of the balance of payments to the United Kingdom, he will give a general direction to the Steel Corporation to rescind their policy of buying oil up to 1972 at a cost of £120 million, and, as an alternative, to enter into contracts to buy British coal or North Sea gas.
§ Mr. MasonNo. But I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to remove some possible misconceptions about these contracts. First, they do not represent a new departure in the steel industry's choice of fuels but a rationalisation of its existing oil supply arrangements; second, coal is not a practical or economic substitute for most of the uses for which the oil is required; third, the distribution facilities to take natural gas to all of the steel works concerned do not yet exist nor indeed could the quantities of gas required for complete substitution throughout the contract period be made available without unacceptable diversions from other users; fourth, there is every prospect that the natural gas which will be available up to 1972 will be absorbed into uses most of which will involve the displacement of oil and much of which will displace oils of higher value than those normally used by the steel industry.