CONFIDENT OF SUCCESS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 11, 15 May 1939, Page 8

CONFIDENT OF SUCCESS

O OIL SEARCH IN TARANAKI DIRECTOR TO INSPECT FIELDS "I am sure we shall find oil, probably Avithin the next year cr months. If Ave were not eonUdeat that we were going to find oil, we would not have sunk more than half a million pounds in the venture.'' This statement was made in an interview on his arrival at Wellington by the Wanganella by Sir Colin Frnser, chairman of directors -of the New Zealand Petroleum Company and other companies now prospect in in Taranaki and on the East Coast. He said tho/t he had come over to inspect the work on the of which he had received very encouraging reports. "People often express surprise that we haven't ve,t started drilling in Tatranaki, said Sir Colin,. "Sometimes they wrongly assume that it is hecause we haven't found any indication of oil, or don't expect to find it. They do not realise that the days of sinking shafts haphazard on the hi*t_ or-miss principle, are past. METHODS O.F ATTACK "In Taranaki the in,augurr.tion of an early drilling campaign would have been unwise if not useless, without a prior extensive geological examination, aided by the employment of modern geophysical methods. This is now in, progress. Such methods of attack on the difficult problem of locating, in the rocks lying concealed beneath the superficial blanket of volcannc ash, structural conditions favourable for the accumulation of were unknown when the Taranaki Oil Fields Company undertook exploration in that province in 1924 and 19'2.">. "That oil exists in Taranaki is proven by the production at Moluroa of some 90,000 barrels. It is reasonable to believe that a correct diag nosis of structural conditions through out the province, which has never heretofore been possible, will guide the company to drill the most promising areas and locate and develop producing oilfields. "Drilling conditions in the Taranaki moreover, should prove easy r judging by the experience when a well at Tarata exceeding in depth oOOfl feet was drilled with ordinary standard cable tools. '*