PETROLEUM NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 198, 19 February 1912, Page 7

PETROLEUM NEWS.

Mr. J. D. Henry, oil expert, interviewed in Sydney on his return to England from a visit to the New Plymouth oilfields, said that as a result of recent discoveries, and of the interest which the Government had begun to take in the; industry, popular confidence in the future of the petroleum industry had become very marked, for it was recognised that not only were the oilfields in both Islands likely to be of immense value, but that there were Imperial and commercial reasons why the deposits at New Plymouth', Gisborne and Kotuku should be worked in accordance with modem practice. The markets of New Zealand were commercially sound and exclsive. Indeed, Mr. Henry observed, it would be almost impossible to find and they would be greatly augmented by the opening of the Panama Canal and the "use of liquid fuel on many of the Pacific liners. As to the prospects of oil being discovered in Australia, Mr. Henry said that although some of the Government geologists held contrary views, he was hopeful that the day would arrive when oil would be found to exist not only in the Northern Territory, but in Queensland and the Warren river district. Speaking as to the Commonwealth Oil Corporation, Mr. Henry referred to its tremendous deposits, and t)ie prospects which tbe company had of becoming one of the most valuable industrial concerns in this part of the world. There was no getting away from the fact, he sstid, that one of the besit shale deposits ort earth existed in the 'Blue Mountains. There was nothing, in Scotland, the home of the shale oil industry, to equal the Blue Mountains deposit either in regard to quantity or quality.