TARANAKI OIL FIELDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 148, 9 November 1912, Page 8

TARANAKI OIL FIELDS.

THE BOXJTHON PROPERTY. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent). Wellington, Last Night, /.ir. William Mt-u.ui, secretary of the Bonithon Freehold Pertoleum Company Extended, leaves here for New Plymouth to-morrow. He will be accompanied by ->-. .1. K. Robertson, who arrived from California in the Tahiti. Mr. Robertson, uiio was drilling on the Fullerton Oil-1 fields (Southern California) was there engaged for New Zealand by Mr. McLean, and lie comes out with his family) under contract with the company. Work will begin at once, and when boring ia commenced (the new rotary plant being due here next month), Mr. Robertson will keep at it, twelve hours a day, Sundays and holidays included,] until the oil is obtained in the depth pro-' posed to be bored. Speaking to a Post reporter, Mr. Robertson said the petroleum industry was but really beginning, for from day to day, fresh discoveries were being made for the uses of the oil (both crude and re- < fined), and by-products. In recent years the motor «ar, also oil for the propulsion of vessels and oil fuel for steamers and other uses to which coal was applied, have caused .an enormously increased demand for oil. He was not inclined to agree with a British authority (Mr. Benjamin Taylor) that "the present production of oil is even now greater than the demand." So far aa the United States was concerned, there was an enormous and unsatisfied demand for all the oil that could be raised. The inlluence of petroleum wells on farming lands was brought before Mr. Robertson, and he said, in reply, that the wells in Southern California were on desert lain 1 ., but there was nothing in the industry that had any undesirable effect upon arable or pasture lands.

Could the by products of oil raised be made to pay all expenses leaving the re-fined-oil clear prolit* Mr. Robertson believed they could be, given a fair flow of oil. New discoveries were being made in the world's laboratories ahno.-t daily, one might nay in connection with by-products of oil, but there was Mill very synch to learn in this direction. The gas was a valuable product from any well, where there was, a steady supply, and it was utilised in very many places for heating and lighting. Gasolene was made from it, also the gas lines and pipe lines Tan side by side for hundreds of miles. With regard to oilfields labour it was mostly expert and did not employ so many men as some other industries did. It was healthy, and especially so in malarious localities, for the gas and oil were inimical to insects responsible for the propagation of malaria and kindred diseases. It was suggested that if the Bonitlion Company were successful in obtaining sufficient oil, that it might erect .a refinery. Mr. Robertson said that could -be done for say £ SOOO, to do all 1 hat the Bbnithon Company would require for a long time to come. As soon as the machinery arrived it would be set up and put to work on the Bonithon ficjld, and no time would 'be unnecessarily lost. NEW ZEALAND OIL WELLS, LIMITED Drilling at No. I bore at Bell Block is being steadily proceeded with continuously night and day, and a depth of 214 feet has now been attained. At No. 2 bore at Bell' Block good progress is also being made, and drilling operations are in full swing. Definite information was received yesterday that the plant which has been hung up in Wellington for the last three weeks will come forward by the Pukaki arriving here to-morrow.