TARANAKI PETROLEUM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 171, 18 January 1912, Page 4

TARANAKI PETROLEUM.

"* I UNDER NEW OWNERS. OUTPUT TO CO UP. WELL-SIXKIX (t OPERATIONS. ' Said Tuesday's Auckland Herald:— Operations on the Taranaki oilfields within the next year or two promise to be on a very large and important scale. "The fields are going to be worked thor- ' oughly," said ill'. H. J. Brown, chairman of the British Empire Oil Fields, Ltd., purchaser of the Taranaki Petroleum Company's interests, to a Herald reporter yesterday. Mr. Brown, who has had a long aixl varied experience in oilfields in all parts of the world, said that Taranaki had not been worked, properly yet. The new company's first action would be to send Home for a geologist, whose business it would be to spend six months in superintending exploratory work on the field«. '"Then," said Mr. Brown, "we are going to sink wells down 5000 ft. We don't mind what oil we strike on the way down; we are going steadily down, perhaps through three. or four rises." "When we have determined the true horizon," Mr. Brown continued, "we will proceed to draw oil from three or four rises, and more than that, we will take care to shut off the water as we go. So far the greatest depth has. only been 3050 ft., and oil came up without any pumping help at all. For 150 barrels a week to have been secured for about two years under those conditions is unique in l the history of oil work. That oil is the richest in paraffin in th« world; the percentage is ny 2 per cent., and the next best is 10 per cent."

The new company atoo proposes to put down half-a-dozen bores to find out exactly where to put the wells. Instead of 11-inch bores, they will sink 20-inch bores. A one unit refinery will also be erected at a cost of £ 12,000 or £14,000, and with these arrangements it is hoped to make a profit of £30,000 a year; instead of 150 barrels a week, 150 barrels a day is the anticipated output. The company, said Mr. Brown, had a work-

ing capital of £275,000, and had agreed' to purchase the fields for £105,000.

OIL FIELDS SOUTH OF THE LINE.

Said the London Financier of Decenv ber Si-

Mr. J. D. Henry, the Colonial oil expert, is leaving London on another round-the-world trip—the second this year—to visit oilfields in different parts of the Empire. . He is a passenger by the Mauretania, and will cross from Vancouver to New Zealand in the Makura r owned by tie Union Steam Ship Company ofjfew Zealand, which has.^decideJ to use oil fuel on the new additions 'tof 1 its fleet.'

: Seen by a .represent^j,ve pf,;f&}S:pappr J Mr. Henry said':' "I am goiiig iouth of the line, where I expect to see important yealifi"'Colonial?" "Yes, and some exceedingly important ones," Mr. Henry Replied. Mr. Henry thinks the oil industry—that is the actual production and commerce of oil—is all right; only the methods of promotion call for improvement. Petrol, lie says, is becoming one of the world's best examples of commerce in connection with an indispensable commodity , of naval and industrial value.

A great deal of interest is being taken in New Zealand oil at the present time, and in addition to his book, "Oilfields of New Zealand," Mr. Henry is engaged on a report on the oilfields for the Dominion Government. The Shell people hav« important interests in both the North and South Islands, and drilling operations have been started at quite a number of different points.