TARANAKI OILFIELDS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2682, 12 January 1924, Page 3

TARANAKI OILFIELDS

CLAIMS OF A DTVTNER

RICH PETROLEUM STREAMS

Te Kuiti, January 7. “I am positive that (here is sufficient. oil in Taranaki to pay the national debt,” said Mr C. McDonald, of Piopio, this morning on his return from a visii In the Taranaki oilfields. Mr McDonald has a local reputation for divining water and mineral deposits. He emphatically asserts that, there are still enormous deposits of petroleum oil a-v.-ay from the track of the present bores. Mr McDonald... claims to have found vast underground streams of oil from 60f‘t to 70ft. in width all over the fields, and considers that if New Zealanders do not awake to this fact there is a grave and almost immediate risk of losing one of the richest oilfields in the world to foreign financiers. Point is given to this mew by the recent arrival in Taranaki of Mr F. G. Clapp, an American geologist who has been engaged by some wealthy Americans to investigate the oilfields. Mr McDonald say's that, on his return to Feilding, via Eltham, he divined nil deposits from 60ft. to -.looyds. in width along the road. He is convinced that they are a continuation of the Taranaki deposits, which probably have their base at Mount Egmont. He considers the discoveries are of national importance, and should he regarded from that viewpoint, and is prepared to do everything in his power to satisfy those interested that the Taranaki province contains one of the richest, oilfields in Ihe world.