OIL PROSPECTS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 October 1927, Page 1

OIL PROSPECTS

THE ROMA FIELD. SYDNEY, October C. Is Australia’s long search for elusive petroleum deposits about to meet with its first commercial success? That is the question which people all over the Commonwealth are asking, following promising signs of the presence of oil at Roma (Queensland).

Efforts to find oil have extended over a score or more of years, and they have been extensively active since the war. during which it was emphasised that Australia would never lie safe in another war so long as she was dependent on foreign countries for oil supplies. Various Governmental methods were tried to encourage prospectors. Despite all activities the search for oil failed. On the Roma field itself, where the first faint rays of hope are now glimmering, boring has gone back for twenty years, but mysterious interferences with the boring plant invariably damped the ardour of the prospectors. Now the search there lias reached such a stage that Professor R. Steele, of the Queensland University, has been able to say: “ The position now is that where the prospectors were formerly searching for oil in the hope that they would get it, they are now searching with the knowledge that tliev will get it.” MINES MINISTER CONFIDENT. The Minister for Mines in Queensland (Mr A. J. Jones) lias been always one of the staunchest of believers that eventually oil would be found on the Roma field—so confident was lie that scoffers dubbed him “ Optimistic Alf.” He performed the opening ceremony of the new plant of the Roma Oil Corporation that is now showing such good results, and in a brief resume of its operations the other day lie said :

“ Not only the eyes of Australia, but the eyes of the world, are on Roma ai present, expecting that this operation will have proved so successful that it will he of great benefit to Australia. On September Bth a quantity of gas showed in this particular bore, the pressure at the Sin pipe being from 251 b to 301 b. A week later the depth of the bore was increased by drilling operations, and gas was brought in in greater quantities and under complete control, the regulated pressure being from 3501 h to 8701 b. On September 16th a quantity of oil, some pints, came through the pipe, and daily since then a few gallons daily which Professor Steele and other authoritative scientists consider oil distillate have come through.” Professor Steele declared that these developments had convinced him that oil was in the neighbourhood of Roma in payable quantities. Is it any wonder that Australians from one end of the country to the other are asking: Will Roma he our first oilfield? SEARCH FOR OIL.

Meanwhile, tho search for oil in Australia’s dependencies, Papua and the New Guinea Mandated territory, continues. Tn these countries geologists, including three British experts, and Dr Walter Woolnough. the OoiniiionwenltlPs oil adviser, are conducting an intensive survey, and this week two amphibian ’planes were dispatched from Melbourne to assist them. They will lie used to do photographic survey work. They will, it is expected, greatly shorten the time involved in a geological survey, and lessen the task of the oil prospectors. It is claimed that the use of ’planes in the hunt- for oil has never "been made previously.