The Dominion. WEDNESDAY. JULY 30, 1913 THE TARANAKI OIL INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1815, 30 July 1913, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY. JULY 30, 1913 THE TARANAKI OIL INDUSTRY

» The opening of the new refinery of the Taranaki Oil Wells, Ltd., which took place on Monday, marks an important stage in the development- of the oil industry in New Zealand. The optimistic opinions expressed in the speech delivered by Mn. Okey, the member for Taranaki, were not merely an enthusiastic sketch of things hoped for, but were supported by a series of accomplished facts which are capable of verification by anyone at any time. It is a striking illustration of what has been accomplished almost without the people outside of Taranaki realising it, that Mil. Okey and Mn. Wilkinson (the member for Kginont) made, the trip from Taranaki to Wellington yesterday in a motor-ear driven by Taranaki benzine, the journey beins covcred tlw slightest tnisnaD, That the oil is

thero has been known for years; that it is of good quality is'being practically demonstrated; and that there is a great and growing worldwide demand for it is not open to doubt. In such circumstances, it is not surprising that the people of Taranaki should look forward hopefully to the time when their oil wells will be producing sufficient not only to meet the requirements of NewZealand, as far as this increasingly valuable, commodity is concerned, but ;uso of supplying the needs of othjr parts of the Empire. In yesterday's issue of The Dominion cablegrams were published stating that three of the leading British railways are at present experimenting on a large scale with oil fuel, and that the British Government has laid down four Dreadnoughts, which are to bo propelled by oil. These are but signs of the tiipes. Already large shipping interests have turned their attention to the possibilities of this fuel, and experiments made_ have proved so successful that it is generally recognised that the futuro of oil as a fuel is assured. The successful establishment of the oil industry in New Zealand would be of such immense importance to the Dominion that the enterprise displayed by the people of Taranaki and. those who have assisted from other parts must necessarily arouse the sympathetic interest of all who have given any thought to the. matter. A permanent supply of oil fuel in this part of the world oould not fail to be of great value to_ tho Empire if, as anticipated, liquid fuel is to come into general use for naval purposes. In the course of the discussion on the Navy Estimates in the House of Commons on May 26, Mr. Winston Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty) pointed out the great advantages which the uso .of liquid fuel confers upon ship design, in ability to obtain and maintain high speed, in the wider radius of action, in diminution of the numbers of, and of the strain upon, the personnel, and in the capacity for refuelling at sea. In Mr. Churchill's opinion the first among the difficulties in the way of the general adoption of oil fuel for the Navy is the absence of any fresh supply indigenous to the British Islands, and tho scarcity of any such supplies in vieiv throughout the Empire. Tho British Govcrnnienfc is also confronted with price movements of a far-reaching character, which arc, says Mr. Churchill, part of an attempt on a gigantic scale to corner the market and control tho output. The_ successful establishment of the oil industry in New Zealand must, in such circumstances, prove an important influence in Empire naval development More than £1,000,000 is included in the Estimates of the British Goreniment for the present year for the purchase, transport, and storage of oil fuel reserves, and that sum will be largely exceeded in the immediate future. It is, however, not only the British Government that is turning its attention to tho uso of oil for naval purposes. Other nations have the same "matter under consideration, and tho United States has been safeguarding its supply by taking over an area of the Californian oil-fields. At present the principal oil-produc-ing countries are outside the British Empire, as is shown by the following figures, giving the. world's production in metric torts of petroleum during the year 1911: — Per cent. i Production, of total. United Slates 25),393,552 03.80 Kussia 9,0GG,?59 19.16 Eastern Archipelago 1,670,668. 3.52 Rumania 1,544,072 3.21 Onlicia 1,4.)5,275 3.04 British India -897,184 1.87 Canada 38.513 ' 0.08 In view of the trend of events, it is of the greatest importance that Great Britain sho ( uld not be entirely dependent upon ' foreign countries for her supplies of oil fuel. The fear was at one time expressed that even if a permanent supply of oil was discovered in Ne.w • Zealand, there might be no market for it at a payable price. Eceent developments have, however, dispelled any such misgivings, for already the increasing demand has led to increases in price, while the prospects point to the demand of the future being still more disproportionate to the supply.