PETROLEUM IN BURMA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 322, 13 January 1909, Page 4

PETROLEUM IN BURMA.

! Ju his recently (published • Sketch the Mineral liesources of J Sir Thomas Holland devotes a chapter to petroleum, from which the .Rangoon Gazette of 30tlx November, just to hand, makes the following extracts: -More , rapid progress 'has been made during the past, few years in developing the petroleum resources of India than most of the other mineral products. The lirst deep wells were drilled in Burma about twenty years ago, and until then the only crude oil was derived from the -hand dug wells put down -by the native twinzas, or hereditary oil-diggers. Since the introduction of Kuropean drills to the field, the production has rapidly risen, and, in lUUtf, the crude oil raised in Burma amounted to nearly 13Si million gallons. Of this amount million gallons were obtained from the small area known as the Yenangyaung oilJield in the Magwe district. The local product has eoyie into competition with imported kerosene oil, and the imports have consequently been reduced in ten years from over ST to 02 million gallons, the general consumption in the country having at the same time greatly increased. A certain amount of ket'OMMie manufactured iu Jiurma Iris been exported to Indian ocean ports and to China, but the exports have varied considerably owing to commercial agreements between the principal companies concerned. There has been, however, a steady development in the production and export of the parallinwax separated during the refinement of the crude petroleum. The quantity of paradin-wax exported has averaged about 55,000 cwts. during the past live years. Oil refineries have been erected Ijoth in A»sam and Hurma, and the various constituents of the crude oil are now put on the market in the form of petrol, illuminating oil, lubricating oil, paraflin-wax and coke. The most productive oil-llelds of Burma are those on the eastern side of the Arakan Yoma, hi the Irmwaddy valley, forming a belt stretching from the •Magwe District, in which the wellknown field of Yeuangvaung occurs, through Myingyun which contains the Singu, across the. Irrawaddy into Pak* okku where Yeiwngyat is situated. Oil is however known further south In Minim, Thayetmyo and Prome, and further north in the (,'liindwin valley, but these areas have not so far been thoroughly prospected, and the greatulevelopment which has recently taken •place has been the direct outcome of •work in the three fields, Yenangyaung, Yetiangyat and Singu. The ancient oil-diggers, who worked witli special terms fixed by King Mindon in 1857 and continued by King Thibaw, are protected by a special reserve of land iu the centre of the richest fiehl. Many of theui continue the practice of putting down hand-dug wells, which they now deepen to as much as 350-400 feet, with the aid of a divingdress and air-puin,p to avoid the noxious ■effects of the gases that formerly limited the operations of the diggers. Many of the .sites granted to these twinxas have been sold, however, to the European oil companies, and the field is now drilled to depths of 2.000 feet or more, with the result that the main supply of oil is being obtained from deeper sandbeds unknown to the twinzas and beyond their reach.