SAGASCO a major South Australian gas-making industry until switch to natural gas sees it taken over in 1990s
South Australian Gas Company (SAGASCO) was a strong presence in the 20th Century, including (clockwise from top left) a carburetted water gas plant at Osborne from 1947, Porta-Gas cooking demonstrations, bottled gas delivery, and one of its large gas holders at Thebarton (demolished in 1977).
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia
The South Australian Gas Company (or SAGASCO as it was familiarly known after World War II) in 1961 was still one of South Australia’s major industries, serving 130,000 consumers and employing more than 1200.
But it was about to make a major change that would see it disappear as that entity in the 1980s. Early in the 20th Century, as a manufacturer of gas, South Australian Gas Company remained hard pressed to meet increased demand. This was especially so while the manufacture of gas in the state relied on New South Wales coal.
The disruption of coal supplies during World War I prompted the company to cut back both its country and metropolitan operations. Strikes on the New South Wales coalfields immediately after World War II led to severe restrictions on gas – and electricity – supplies from 1945 to early 1947, prompting carburetted water gas plants to be installed at Osborne and Brompton in 1947 to diminish the reliance on coal from New South Wales. A catalytic reforming plant was commissioned at the Brompton gas works in 1964 and making gas from coal ended there in 1965.
South Australian Gas Company became truly South Australian when it began marketing LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) during the 1950s. The industry had changed radically after major natural gas reserves were found in the Cooper Basin in the far north of South Australia.
A decision in 1965 to convert the Electricity Trust of South Australia’s proposed Torrens Island power station from oil to gas provided a market in Adelaide large enough to justify the cost of pipeline from the gas fields. The Pipelines Authority of South Australia was established in 1967 and the Moomba-Adelaide pipeline completed in 1969 and a spur pipeline to Port Pirie opened in 1976.
As a distributor of natural gas from 1969, SAGASCO dismantled the coal-gas plants and cut its workforce. When the manufacture of gas ceased at Osborne in 1979, SAGASCO became exclusively a supplier of natural gas.
In 1988, the South Australian Gas Company merged with the South Australian Oil & Gas Corporation to form SAGASCO Holdings Group that, in 1993, became a subsidiary of Boral Limited.