PETROLEUM NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 225, 28 January 1911, Page 7

PETROLEUM NEWS.

I While Xew Zealand is trying to develop its oil industry, New South Wales has not been idle, for the Federal Government has given £50,000 subsidy towards the opening of shale oil deposits in the Wolgan Valley. Thirty-two miles of railway have been constructed to the spot and in the valley there arc vast engineering and machinery shops, the shale mines, a cqal mine, coke works, and a hundred and one accessories which go to make up the establishment of the oil-producing industry. Over 700 men are employed on the works at present, and still further development is bein<* pushed along, including- the erection o? two enormous storage tanks, whnch will each have a capacity of half a million gallons. In the mountain there arc practically inexhaustible deposits of excellent shale oil, the •'face" varying from a little under 3ft on the Wolgan side to about 4ft fiin at the Capertee end, and expert opinion says there is enough shale there to keep Australia supplied with oil and the contingent products for the next hundred years at leaost. That should shake the monopoly of the Standard Oil Trust.