ENDLESS OIL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 125, 14 October 1912, Page 6

ENDLESS OIL.

A GREAT INDUSTRY- '• j OBSERVATIONS ON- SOME-.AMERICAN FIELDS. PLANT FOR TARANAKI. - - , ■ With more faith than ever in 'the possibilities and. future of - the • oil' industry and fresh from an inspection of the great oil-bearing fields of California and Texas, Mr. W., McLeajy.of the, Bonithon Oil Company, got back'to Wellington on Wednesday. . The people of New Zealand, he says, -have not yet realised what the industry may mean to this country. To do so they need to know of the immense- strides it i» making elsewhere, in'' the United States among other places. , BONITHON WILL LOSE NO TIME. To a New Zealand Times reporter' Mr..McLean explained that his''trip'was i undertaken so that he could study the' most up-to-date methods iii use on the . American oilfields and" select the best possible boring plant for operation on his company's land at New Plymouth, lie spent two full:mofiths -on'the-oil.field's in California and Texas,- and finally decided on the purchase, of a Parker rotary 20-inch "Mogul" plant. ■: This -apj/aratus bored a hole twenty inches in diairieter and in good country was .capable of sinking :as much as 2000 feet per- month; ,If need be it would bore a hole 5200 feet deep, though the company hoped to strike oil a good deal .higher than that. The equipment was to be sent "by way of New York, and was- expected to reach Wellington early in' November. '"Two expert oil-drillers had also been engaged. One of them, Mr. 11. Carney, with" his family, arrived on by the Tahiti, and the other would come from San Francisco by the Moana on her next trip. In all probability i the company would have selected the-site-for-the bore and have got the derrick- erected,by the time the drilling equipment -arriyed, so that no further time would be lost before commencing operations. If oil were found, and he had .no doubt, on this point, the company had made arrangements which would enable them to do their refining at a very low cost. OIL USED NEARLY EVERYWHERE, . While in the States he was struck* by the very great developments of the industry. He found oil being.nsed for almost every conceivable purpose and in all directions. Every passenger train, running out of San Fj-a'ncisco. arid, Los Angeles was drawn by oil-fired." ' locomotives. A number of steamers trading out of San Francisco were also oil driven. Many of the largest hotels in the city did all their cooking by oil. This form of fuel, indeed, seeme'd to be in almost general use and to give general satisfaction. The trains carried tanks holding, say, 3000 gallons, a quantity which would drive a train three times the weight of the New Plymouth express for 300 miles—a consumption of ten gallons per mile. The engineers said there was no trouble at all with the oil, which was most economical in use when compared with coal. Mr. McLean's observations on this point satisfied him that oil was to -be the great propelling agent for trains and steamers in the future. CEASELESS ACTIVITY ON THE FIELDS.

The oil fields of America were very extensive, and tlie bores on them were so close together that from a little distance the ground seemed to be covered with derricks. Pumping went on day and night all the year round, yet in spite of tliis ceaseless activity very few men were employed about the fields. Once the wells were sunk the processes of oil production went on almost automatically. From the pumps it went to huge reservoirs—iron tanks holding 65,000 gallons each—alongside which the trains wei;e run and the tank waggons filled by the dropping of a pipe. , It

really semed as if there were no end to the oil. In Pennsylvania some of the wells had ueen yielding for sixty years. Sometimes one would cease running, but all that was necessary to start it going again was to put down a shot of dynamite and clear the bore out at the bottom. The profitable nature of the industry was shown by the fact that on this field it paid to pump a bore for a yield of only half a gallon a day, Mr. McLean said he was satisfied that the Taranaki oil fields would be equally successful in proportion to their size. With proper machinery and expert drillers, such as he had engaged, there was no doubt that the industry here would expand altogether beyond the present conception of most people. There was plenty of oil here of high quality; indeed, one barrel of New Zealand oil had been I proved to be worth two and three-quar-ter barrels of the American product.