Oil Fields in the British Empire.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 May 1910, Page 4

Oil Fields in the British Empire.

The editor of ithe " Petroloum World," Mr J. D. Henry, .re-miark-e<l a. few weeks ago that it would be impossible to find a body of petroleum producers who had shown more energy and devotion in tho preliminary stages of oil-Hold exploitation than "the oil men of New Zealand." Ho added .that there was no colony of any sizo in the Umpire which was no* believed to ( bo oil-bearing. The southern portion of Trinidad, with an. area.of over 80 square miles, was a field with livery promise of a splendid future. Ihrbadoes, rnilee away, also oil-fields, and along I/lie coast of Newfoundland, overlooking the Strait of Belle Isle, there wore vast stretches of oil-hearing land, geologically attested and at one point absolutely proved by local enterprise. In the island of Antieosti, right along the Nova- Scotian and Labrador coasts, amd in New Hriinswiok, there were territories of groat potential value to the oil industry, and further west wore the famous'oil-fields of the leading Canadian provinces, starring in Ontario and continuing as far as the NorthWest Territory. The Egyptianodlfields wore commanding attention, and oil-drilling was proceeding on ,tho West Coast of Africa. There had also hcen a revival in South African oil enterprises. The greatest development in the immediate future was likely to tako place- in Burmali. "The private maps of experts showing fields awaitinig development within the Empire aro a revelation in industrial geography," said Mr Henry, "at«t if T may hazard a guess I should say that when the oilfields of the Empire are brought to a etage of reasonably enterprising develop-, meiit they will compete with Russia, Roumania, Galicia, and given time, oven with America, in the mnlbter of annual output. Thoro is no artificial substitute for oil, and tho British oil industry owing to the rapidity of its, growth and its freedom from climatic and geological restrictions will assume .vast proportions."