At Vu Ya Ching Road one holder was pierced by a bullet and on the ight of October 30 a shell struck the workshop lift shaft and exploded inside the shaft, damaging the lift mechanism, Tt was with regret at being unable to keep our workmen together that we were forced 10 cease supplying. as from August 16 to September 8, and we apologise to our consumers, for the inconvenience caused.
The accounts, I regret, do not show the result we anticipated on our first six months working, when your board declared an interim dividend on that showing, and then subsequently can~ celled it, We were heading for a record year and estimated an increase of at least 15 per cent. in the quantity of gas sold; the actual results, however, have proved the reverse, as you will see from the report before you.
Turning to consumption, gas sold for all purposes during the year was 749,172,372 cubic feet being a decrease of '134/628,757 cubic feet, equal to 1528 per cent, It is interesting to note, however, that for the first seven. months of the past year, consumption had increased by 82,200,900 cubic feet equal to 166 per cent, as compared with 1936, a gain which justined our optimism, which later was. shattered bby the outbreak of August, Unaccounted-for gas was 7.2 per cent, of the quantity made compared with, 65 per cent. but T think you will agree that the 1937 figure is very satisfactory when consideration is given to the losses sustained as_a result of. the fighting in the Chapel and the Northern and Eastern districts,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.