Perim Island

Coaling Statistics 1893-1913

 

From even a cursory look at coaling statistics for Perim for the period 1900-1913, and especially when looking at a graph of quarterly sales, one can soon appreciate the salutatory effect of the monsoon season which would normally guarantee increased sales. The reason for this was because it was too dangerous during the monsoon season for steamers to carry extra coal on deck, something many needed to do to get them to Suez from India or Ceylon, or vice-versa. Few steamers took on a full bunker of coal at Perim.

 

In a ‘normal’ year the monsoon months were June, July and August; in some years the monsoon began early in May or late in July and occasionally the monsoon can be said to have ‘failed’ – as it appears to have done in 1909 and to a lesser extent also in 1902 and 1906. However the weather was not the only imponderable; the outbreak of cholera amongst the coolies on Perim reduced sales by a half in the first quarter of 1911. On the other hand Perim had benefitted from a similar outbreak in Aden in April and May 1900, which probably also contributed to the excellent sales figures during the monsoon period that year. 

 

Wars and uprisings elsewhere in the world could also have a major effect on sales, usually to the good. For example sales in 1900 and 1901 benefitted from the abnormal number of troop transports and warships which needed to coal at Perim. Most of the former were Russian troop transports taken up from trade to carry Russian volunteers to China, the authorities not having wanted these to pass through Aden.

 

Other interesting figures are available for the six years 1908-13, from classified returns submitted by the Assistant Resident. In the autumn of 1907 it became obvious that a war with Germany at some time in the future was rather more than just a possibility. As far as Perim was concerned two measures were introduced. The first was that the Assistant Resident was ordered to submit a classified monthly return of coal stocks, referred to as the ‘Intelligence Summary’. 

 

The second was that the Senior Naval Officer (SNO) in Aden, at the time Commander Segrave RN, began conducting quarterly inspections of coal stocks. 

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The SNO would have been checking on three things in particular: that the mandatory reserve of coal which the PCC had to maintain for RN use was being kept at the proper level; that it was being stored under cover; and that it was of the best quality – in other words Welsh coal. In 1908 the mandatory quantity was 4,000 tons. Sometime between then and 1913 the mandatory reserve was reduced to 3,000 tons.

 

The Intelligence Summary shows that the PCC tried to keep coal stocks to a working minimum – so much so that in five of the 24 quarters in the period 1908-13 the stock remaining was less than 4,000 tons but at the end of only two quarters was it under 3,000 tons. On the other hand at the end of only two quarters was the stock level in excess of the 12,000 tons which in 1890 Hinton Spalding had stated was the norm. That level had been reduced to ease cash-flow problems. By and large stocks needed to be being built up from March to May in advance of the next monsoon. It follows that stocks were at their most depleted at the end of September and normally still low at the end of the year. 

 

Another summary, taken from returns submitted by the Perim Coal Company, covers a 14 year period from April 1893 to March 1907 inclusive. These statistics show the number of ships calling to coal each month. This average was 392, with a high of 480 in 1898-99 and lows of 323 in 1905-06 and 328 in 1906-07 (remembering that the monsoon in 1906 was particularly weak). The most interesting statistic is the average tonnage of coal taken by each ship. The average tonnage taken each year per ship varied between 143.6 tons in 1903-04 and 108.5 tons in 1896-97, with an overall average for the 14 years of 123.6 tons. This figure supports the policy of most shipping companies that a call to coal at Perim was to top up bunkers rather than to fill up from nearly empty. 

 

Compare this low figure with the 925 tons taken between three RN cruisers or the 654 tons taken by HMS Royal Arthur, all during single visits, during the naval manoeuvres in 1908. Another comparison (from looking at the article ‘Boom and Bust’) is the average of 335.8 tons taken by each steamer coaling at Perim during the 10 years from April 1922 when Perim was replacing Aden as the major coaling station in the Gulf of Aden for steamers plying to and from the Far East or the East coast of Africa. Admittedly the average size of steamers post WW1 was higher than pre-war – but not significantly so.