OIL IN DERBYSHIRE.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 August 1919, Page 7

OIL IN DERBYSHIRE.

rI':oMIsING PROSPECTS. ‘ BORING WORK PROCEEDING. British oil, taken from the well at Hardstoft, Derbyshire, was standing in a square bottle on the mantelpiece of Sir John Cadman’s* room in Mayfair, when a press representative called on him, says a London pa.pel', He is head of the Government Petroleum Executive. ‘~ ~ Sir John, who before the war was a leading mining professor at Birmingham, looked at it With the friendly eye of a man who has always held that there were good scientific reasons for believing that oil could be found in Great Britain. Then he took a glass-stoppered bottle" and poured into it a couple of ounces of the fluid. A smell as of a drippillg petrol tank on a hot tarrcd street pervaded the room. “Yes, it’s got a kick to it, as the Americans say,” said Sir John, “Look at the colour.’-,’ He shook the bottle, and the fluid, which had been reddishbrown, showed shades of green on the glass and iridescent bubbles on the surface. A pretty sight for an enthusiast to weave words about. “What are the prospects ” Sir John Cadman was asked. “Looking very promising, the oil is running out of the well,” he replied. “Great credit is due to Ml‘ Veatch, the American geologist Mr Crandall, and Dr Hackford,-Lord Cow.rday’s chief chemist, all of whom reasoned from the geological, and chemical aspect and advised a trial bore at Hardstoft_ Though it is impossible even now to say whether oil is present in comlnercial quantities, the results show that they were justified. “If this were in the United States,” he remarked, “there would be a ‘boom,’ wells would be sunk all over the place and themap would be changing handg every day. Fortunately the Government controls drilling, and that cannot happen in this country. Meanwhile we have got to get a definite policy, and that is receiving Cabinet attention. Whose oil is it and how is it going to be worked? Those‘ are questions the Cabinet is deciding. Meanwhile control, has passed from the Ministry of Munitions to the Petroleum Executive, and work is proceeding on the lines already started. “The oil is a true, parafiin base oil of very high quality, with 10 per cent. petrol, 40 per cent. kerosene, and the balance is made up of lubricating oil, gas oil, and fuel oil. This sample has all the characteristics of high-grade crude out of which you -can get motor spirit, lighting oil, paraflin wax, oil for gasworks and heavy oil for Diesel engines and Admiralty use. “‘On the whole the results justify the investigation and are a triumph for scientific reasoning.”