THE TARANAKI OILFIELD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 167, 24 October 1910, Page 2

THE TARANAKI OILFIELD

• j ITS PROSPECTS TO-DAY. 1 DISTINCTLY ENCOURAGING. ; No one drifting into New Plymouth and talking to the average citizen to- ' day would dream that this town held the bulk of the share capital cnibarkea 1 in a primary industry with immense possibilities. Or, if by some chance ho ' did come to such a conclusion, thert would be little in the ordinary conversation of the street to warrant his coming to the conclusion that the existence of the primary product had been provea in no uncertain fashion, and that the capital and seaport town of Taranaki was halting on the eve of a period of remarkable development and rapid progress. But a chance visit to the oil wells at Moturoa, a half-hour's inspection of the works, stocks of oil and samples, and a few words of explanation from the manager, would cause him to add still another to the highly hopeful and confident expressions which appear in the "remarks" column of the Visitors' book at the manager's office. A VISIT TO THE WORKS.

"How long has it been going like this?" was the question asked by one of a party of visitors to the Taranaki Petroleum Company's works on Friday. The answer was that the oil had been flowing almost continuously at No. St bore from the sth day of January last, or for about nine months and a half, and the average output of the well, without any assistance by pumping, had been about 100 barrels, or 4000 gallons,' every week. The visitors had made a full and very inquisitive inspection. First, they had seen the work of cleaning out the well at "Number One," the initial bore put down by the founders I of the present company. They had heard of its output of oil four years ago, of the hopes then entertained, and of the accident which had occurred whilst the well was closed down, pending developments in another bore. They had been given a careful explanation of the system of boring with a drill, and of the! necessity for "casing" the hole, or lin-j in'g it with steel pipe; of the difficulty! experienced in "shutting off water," of! the hard work that followed any acci-' dent to the casing, such as occurred at this well only a week or two ago, when a break occurred some fifteen hundred feet down. And they learned with an infinite satisfaction that the whole of the casing above the break had been carefully and successfully hauled to the top again, after which the staff "fished" for and found the casing below the break, and succeeded in hauling it to the top, too; that 1850 feet of this 8-inch casing had been screwed together and replaced in the hole, and that there was ; still about four hundred feet of the orig- : inal hole filled with sand and sandstone, papa and stones, all of which had to be : removed by the sand-pump before the i casing could be inserted, as was necessary, right to the bottom of the well. - But no one understood but the manager ' and his men what this meant—this con-'. tinual cleaning out, repairing, replacing 1 j and correcting old work. It was as , h#,rd as drilling a new well, no faster,! and without the satisfaction of doing 1 the work for the fiTst time. Then they 1 left this derrick, where the showers of ] muddy water, necessitated the men ■ wearing sou'-westers and oilskin suits on ! this warm summer day, and paid a visit j to "Number Two."

IMMENSE STOCKS OF OIL. | Here the dirty work of boring had been completed. The drill had penetrated several oil seams, and the casing was now filled with oil oozing up from the bowels of the earth. The pent-up forces of nature, now provided with a vent, were pressing the precious fluid up through 3030 feet of steel pipe and thence by another pipe into large tanks. Here it was steamed and cleaned for storage purposes. A tremendous pressure of gas exists. Highly inflammable and— when mixed with the air—dangerously explosive, this gas was formerly, a source of danger. A naked light} when brought into the derrick when this: pungent gas was being belched forth with tremendous force, would have meant destruction of the derrick, and perhaps of . human life. As a matter of i fact, the burning of No. 3 derrick was! attributed to the gas having reached! the boiler furnace, which had been' placed close to the pipe-head. The pres-j ent manager, Mr. L. Keith, thought it "'a pity to waste it," and devised, a, means of utilising this gas. So a pipe was led from the mouth of the bore to! the boiler-house, and a jet of natural gas had been used for months past ini the furnace. This was the next inter-1 esting feature of the visit. Instead olj the stoker having to shovel in coal, all) he had to do when he wanted a little' more steam was to open the tap a little wider, iind the furnace filled with fierce' flame. "See the oil burn," he said, ana' the turning of another tap added a jetl of crude petroleum to the fuel, and! they had a demonstration of the use of) oil for steam-producing purposes. FromJ the boiler-house the visitors had turned their steps to the great tanks. Lid after lid was raised, and a peep revealed great masses of a waxy-looking, greenish substance —congealed petroleum. About 150,000 gallons of oil were in stock. "Thirteen feet deep," said the cicerone, nodding towards the last of the series of subterranean storage tanks, practically full of oil, "and it takes five bar-' rels to increase its depth an inch." He explained that there were forty gallons in a barrel, and the arithmetician of the party figured out on his shirt-cuff that there were no less than 31,200 gallons of crude petroleum stored there. "Why,"' lie asked, "don't you tell people you've got the oil, and not keep on sayinjg; you're looking for it?"

STILL FLOWING FAST. But it wasn't only the stored oil that the manager had to show. There was J the oil coming direct from the bore,' escaping from its prison two and three' thousand feet below. Gushing out from, the pipe it came, for some time in ai steady stream of small dimensions, and then bubbling and spurting and splut-J tering with great rapidity, filling the; two-inch pipe to its utmost capacity.! This was explained to be the usual habit! of the well, just as though at these twenty-minute intervals some extra, force came into play. It was at this' stage that the question was put, "How| long has it been going like this?" and the answer given, "for nine months ana[ a half, ever since the sth of January."! The question and the reply caused the writer to ponder things a little, and his : mind travelled back along the four and a half years which have elapsed sincej oil was struck at the Birthday well. What excitement reigned. Sanguine folks saw their fortunes made. Shares worth £5 in the oil-boring syndicate ot those days jumped to £7 10s when the news was first bruited abroad. And why ? Because oil was struck. Because, after nights and days of hard work and ' worry, Mr. Fair had drilled into as oil

seam which gave promise of proving! payable. Because the hopes of the prospectors were being justified. Because when the little tap was turned on, petroleum spurted from the mouth of it and filled a kerosene tin in a few seconds. And then it was shut off again. The newspapers of that day make interesting reading. The Daily News of Saturday, April 28, 1900, spoke of the enormous pressure in the well, and of tho' filling of the buckets "for exhibition only." Two days later the pressure increased. In the issue of the following Monday was read: "The works were visited on Saturday and Sunday by large numbers of people, who evinced a lively interest in the bore, especially when the manager gratified their curiosity by opening the taps, allowing the oil to rush out in great volume." Then the information is given that "shares in the boring syndicate are in great demand, and sales at £l4 have been From that Saturday night to the following Tuesday a thousand gallons of oil were reported to have flowed, and negotiations were commenced for the formation of a new company. Shares had ( jumped to £2B, hut "local holders were' parting with but a very small portion of their interests." Oil continued to be j forthcoming whenever the stop cock was turned, and visitors were keen to see it turned. Shares jumped to £4O and to £SO, then to £55. On May 8 it was reported that the indications were for the better, and the bore was sealed down (not, to be re-opened for some time after the formation of the new company, who found that the walls had caved in and the flow of oil had ceased), and a watch was kept "to guard against ! such a contingency as a blow-out." On May 28 the Moturoa Petroleum Company was formed into the present Taranaki Petroleum Company, Ltd., with a capital of £120,000. | But to return to the present visit. 'A memorised version of the happenings just culled from the newspaper files was given to the party, and there was a, unanimous wonderment as to the apparent apathy towards the industry just now, in view of the big developments since then, and the present prospects. But soliloquising on that aspect of the question must "keep" till later. THT. -RCTTMTCn PTJOTJTTCTR.

! The visit could not be complete with-1 out a visit to the unpretentious struc-i ture yclept "the office." Here was seen,' the retort, or miniature refining plant, which was set up recently with a view of demonstrating the utility of the Taranaki Petroleum Company's oil. (The analysis of Dr. Pond and Professor J. C. Easterfield are obtainable on applicition, and show the oil to be of unusual richness, the by-products being many sno valuable). The distilling, which, of course, was not all that would be expected from a complete refining plaat, gave first of all benzine, whose quality was proved by the manager using it oi> an experimental run in his moto" eai Next was kerosene, and this has bevi burned extensively for exhibition purposes at New Plymouth, Hawera and Palmerston winter shows. Four gfades of lubricating oils, were produced, and from these our American friends-obtain no less than.twenty-eight distinct grades. Then some samples of paraffin wax (from .which candles have been made locally), and pitch, which contains properties of value in analine dyeing. Of course petroleum jelly (commonly known as vaseline) is obtainable, fox this oil is very rich. UTILITY OF. THE OIL. Away hack in the early days crude oil was shipped regularly from here to Balclutha for the Water Gas Company, and the Government was also a customer for the oil for use at the Petone railvjay workshops. In later years it has been tried and found efficacious in keeping down the dust nuisance and in the improvement of metalled roads. Experiments are now being conducted by the New Zealand Government Railways Department,-to test its utility as fuel for railway engines. During the past few days twenty-five barrels, filled from No. 2 bore in the presence of Government officials, and stamped and sealed by them, were forwarded Home fof testing by the British Admiralty. Not very long ago a quantity was sent to England by Messrs. R. Collett and Co.'s New 1 Zealand representative (Mr. J. R. Cruickjshank) to be in the Welsh refineries. The result of the test will be [ available shortly, and meanwhile we are I assured that the refiners were well I pleased with the oil. Whenever analysed or tested, the oil has provoked I very favorable comnrmt. and every an- | alysis has borne out the words of- Mr. j Booth, the Canadian driller who drilled I the first well at the root of the breakI water in 18G5, and who said of his sam- | pie, "It is the most valuable oil I have ! ever seen."-

AN EXHAUSTIVE TEST. What are we doing? What is the cause of the present apathy towards the industry? Why are paid-up £1 shares worth only 9s Gd and 9s 9d, when a well has flowed 4000 gallons a week for about ten months, if £5 shares were reckoned to be worth £7O because a well flowed some minutes? At that time the doubters—for Taranaki always grows a fine crop of doubters —said, "Turn on the tap, and let the oil run. Show us that the oil will keep running for a month. Don't- bottle it up like that. We know what you're doing. You're conserving the energy. You open the tap for a few moments, let out a few gallons of oil, aaxd then bottle it up to get enough pressure for the next little demonstration. That's not good enough for us. We want to see the tap left open, and if she flows for a month we'll be satisfied you're in a good oil seam and not in a pocket. Show us that, and everybody will be satisfied."' There was logic in the remarks, and all explanations were unavailing. But No. 2 bore has not merely "been given its head" for a month. It has flowed for nearly ten months, and is going strong as ever. Of course, all the oil from it was not saved, for it flowed whilst drilling went on, and that oil was so full of fine silt as to make it useless. To-day, with the ingenious contrivance fixed by Mr. Keith, it can all be saved. It lias been figured out that No. 2 is easily a payable welli There is little doubt that the Birthday is just as good, and there should be a- clear passage for the oil here in about six weeks' time. Preparations have been made for storing it when it comes. No. 3 gave indications of great things, but the well cannot be proved just yet, pending the arrival of some 4-inch casing. But it is fairly safe to expect that as soon as the well is cleaned out and cased, the oil will flow, for it was flowing strongly when the bore was closed down. Is it improbable, then, that there will lie three flowing wells before Xmas? What a Xmas box for Taranaki! And it is surely no improbability, seeing that all three wells are "down on oil." A HEALTHIER TONE. There is a healthier tone of late. The i company's new issue of preference s shares, whea placed la the hands of re-,,:

cognised brokers only, very last. Lately the thorised various agents and applications freely from the districts operating. Townspeople, too, have eolß nienced to fill in more applications foj the preferential shares, -and, influence' in their decision by the healthy indications, some of them have already added to their original allotment. On Friday night the directors allotted 13.10 of the shares, and on Saturday morning a further 19j were applied for. The capital thus subscribed is to enable the company to continue its prospecting and development work, and to enable them to erect a refining plant, for the sale of crude petroleum is not the be-all and endall of the petroleum industry. It is in the distribution of the refined stuff that the profits lie. The company is at work now on the fourth bore, quite close to No. 1 and, No. 2 wells, and the boring will be pushed ahead rapidly. The start' has now had a good experience of drilling ia Taranaki country, and there should be less difficulty in overcoming natural obstacles. If the present slight revival of interest by the local people is not sustained —it ought to bo very largely improved upon—the New Plymouth people will wake up some line morning ar 1 find that outside people, who a Keenly alive to the potentialities of u.j field, have obtained all the availabl shares, and New Plymouth will '<e le' lamenting. The movements of company are being keenly watched j/ investors near and far, and it is well known that every favorable indication, or unfavorable development, is cabled to some of | the world's big financial institutions which are interested in oil. This is all the more credible when we remember that a local firm has lately been securing lo- | cal options with a view of exploiting the Taranaki petroliferous deposits by English capital.

SOME OPINIONS. [ Some of the opinions recorded in the Visitors' Book: "Promises to be a great national industry." "Have always believed in it; no reason now to doubt." "Congratulate the company on it 9 manager, and especially on his genius in utilising the gas." "Supply seems inexhaustible. With more facilities for refining, should prove a big thing."—London visitor. "From what I have seen, the oil seems to be of first-class quality for steaming purposes."—The testimony of a steamship engineer. The sanje remarks are made by a railway engine-driver. ; ""Makes one tliink of the future." ' "Hope springs eternal in the human breast.' May the hopes entertained by all the well-wishers of this industry be speedily realised." j " . 1 1 : |