ROMANCE OF OIL.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 March 1921, Page 11

ROMANCE OF OIL.

AUSTRALIAN ENTERPRISE STIFLED. Oil in itself ie hardly a romantic subject. But around it, says the writer in the Melbourne Age, are woven such tales of fabulous fortunes made and lost that its history reads like a chapter from the Arabian Nights. In truth, all the treasures of the Cave of Alladin were but a circumstance of the wealth which has flowed from the bowels of the earth in some of the most famous oilfields. Gil in one form or another has been known from the earliest ages. It was utilised in building operations in early Babylon. It was in general use for a variety of purposes when the Roman Empire was at its zenith. For centuries pilgrimages were made to the oil fires of Baku, near the Caspian Sea, and the workshop of the “Eternal Fires of Demak,” in the heart of what are now the great Javanese oilfields, dates ba<s: to the Dark Ages. The Spaniards and the other early colonists found fuel in use for medicinal purposes amongst the natives of Mexico and America, being obtained from springs and wells in various parts of the continent.

Actually, however, the birth of the mammoth oil industry of to-day with its world-wide ramifications and its ormous wealth, dates from 1850, when a British chemist, James Young, patented a process for refinihg crude petroleum and making it suitable for use as an illuminant. Since then the industry has developed until oil has become the greatest necessity of the industrial life of the universe. Up till the time of Y'oung’s patent, petroleum, although known to exist in large quantities in North America, had not been utilised to any great extent. Since then it has very largely

supplanted 4 coal as a fuel, and the worldwide adoption of machinery in industry has created a colossal demand for oil for lubricating purposes. The introduction of motor-driven machinery, and its widespread adoption on sea and on land, have caused a further large increase in the demand for petroleum. EARLY SUCCESSFUL WELLS. The first successful oil wells were discovered and operated in Pennsylvania by Colonel Drake from 1854 to 1859, but, like many other pioneers, Drake died in obscurity, reaping little or no benefit from his labours. To Drake and his assistant, “Old Billy Smith,” belongs the credit for first adopting boring, and the remarkable success which attended their operations with their crude appliances paved the way for the creation of the great oil kings of the world, and the accession of wealth to the mighty oil corporations which have wielded such power in modern industrial development. Tales could be told of the wild rushes to Oil Creek, in Pennsylvania, where Drake made his first “strike,” and in Colifornia, where, later on, huge “gushers” were discovered, -»f adventure and exploration ii; Mexico and So atn America, A;ia, and the East Indies, of wild “rushes,” o< towns springing up like mushrooms in a single night, of wealth, intrigue, of fraud and robb?rv, and high hopes and bitter disappoint dents There was the great Lake View “gusher,” struck in California in 1910, when £60,000 worth of oil flowed from the bowels of the earth in sixteen days, and when a colossal lake containing 105,000,000 gallons of oil was formed in a few days. Even u .re romantic were the discoveries made by the late Mr. Knox d’Arcy, one of the Mount Morgan millionaires, who sought and'found oil in Persia, and laid the foundations for the building up of the great Anglo-Persian Oil Co. There was the great fight between British and American oil interests in Mexico ; which resulted in the ultimate triumph of Lord Cowdray, who became known as the "Ylexican oil king.” There was the construction of the 550 miles of pipe lines to convey the oil from Baku to Batoum on the Black Sea. There was the growth of power of the Standard Oil Trust, which now owns plant worth £140,000,000, the building up of the great Rockfeller millions, and the battle between the United States Governments and the great oil trust, which left the trust i-till dominant, These and thousands of other stories of a like nature are part and parcel of the romantic history of oil development. AUSTRAMA’S INACTIVITY.

Australia is so far practically the only continent which has not produced oil in payable quantities. The amazing thing is that, with the tremendous market existing in the Commonwealth alone, and with the undoubtedly promising indictations of the existence of petroleum in various parts of the continent, no effective steps have been taken to ascertain whether oil does exist. Since 1910 the oil consumption of the Commonwealth hits increased from 25,76-5,000 gallons to 51,000,00 gallons in 1918-19, and Australia is now paying away between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 annually to foreign countries for supplies. Australia’s isolated position, and the fact that abundant suplie;? of oil are required, not only for industrial purposes

and for sea and land transport, but also for naval defend, make it afosodutely inperative that steps should be taken to effectively test our oil resources without a moment’s delay. That this has not been done already seems to be due to two clearly defined circumstances —the extraordinary lack of interest on the part of both Commonwealth and States’ Governments and the efforts of great foreign corporations to crush Australian enterprise in this direction, and to discourage local exploration. In Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, and Tasmania half-hearted attempts have been made to test the indications, but they have all been on a small scale, and haVfe been hampered and retarded by the extraordinary attitude of Government experts, who, not eontent with merely discouraging exploration, have in many cases deliberately set out to convince the public that oil does not exist, although their arguments have been based merely on theoretical ideas of geological formations. The trouble seems to have been that the question has been left largely to geologists instead of to competent boring experts free from bias against British or Australian enterprise. INDICATIONS IN VICTORIA. Time and again attention has been drawn to the possibilities of the existence of oil in various parts of Victoria, and only recently a correspondent pointed out the excellent indications which had been obtained in Traralgor district. What has the Mines Department done to -■assist in tests of these fields? It has done practically nothing. It has acted in much the same way as it has -acted in regard to testing the coal and iron resources of t±e State. What justification there can be for' the*continued existence of a department which is so blind to the interests of Australia is obscure, to say the least of it. And unless the Department shows early and convincing evidence of a desire to institute tests to ascertain the possibility of Victoria supplying her industrial requirements, not only m coal and iron, but also in oil, the public will be entitled to demand the total abolition of the Department as a useless and expensive luxury.

But Victoria does not stand alone in this regard. The experience of prospectors for oil in South Australia has been very much the same as it has been here. Instead of securing every assistance from the Govrnment, the prospectors have 'been hindered and discouraged at every turn. The experts have been content to accept the theories propagated by experts brought to Australia by the big oil concerns of America for the express purpose of preventing, or at least delaying, exploration. Boring operations in the southeastern portion of South Australia have proved that pretroleum exists tn small quantities in the sand, that both asphaltum and paraffin, which are the basis of different types of oil, are present; that the geological structure of the country is similar to that in other oil-producing countries, and that the chemical products which usually accompany oil, such as gypsum, salt, sulphur compounds and gas, are present. In addition, oily scum floating on water—an indication which led to many of the greatest oil discoveries in the world—has been noted in many localities. Yet Government experts have set themselves to attempt to disprove what in the minds of competent oil experts these in. dications prove beyond doubt—that oil actually exists, if only it can be tapped in the right spot. Practical experience has shown that many of the theories of geologists have been wrong.

A CHAPTER OF “ACCIDENTS.” But even more serious than the unenthusiastic attitude of Government officials are the methods adopted by certain interests to render Australian exploration ineffective. Take the case of the Roma bore in Queensland, where gas, which has been proved by analysis to contain petroleum, has been found. The history of boring on that field has been nothing but a chapter of “accidents.” When boring was first commenced by a private company, operations were held up time and again through pieces of steel being deliberately dropped into the bore by some person unknown. Later on, when gas was struck, it mysteriously caught fire and blazed for weeks, until the bore was ultimately “stoppered.” The company, which only had a limited capital, was compelled to close down, and operations were not resumed till 1915, when the Government, having set up a State monopoly in petroleum, recommenced operations with an American manager in charge. In order to protect the workings, barbed wire entanglements were erected around the bore, and guards kept on duty day and night, bu@ even this did not prevent interference, and time and again the work had to be stopped while some obstruction was removed. Ultimately, when the manager went back to America, the boring tools dropped into the bore, and great difficulty was experienced in recovering them. South 1 Australian prospectors have had similar expediences, and in one case a bore was choked with cement. In another a site where excellent indications of oil were obtained was bought up by a big American company which'keeps a caretaker permanently on the premises, but has taken no steps to go on with boring operations. SYSTEMATIC WORK WANTED. It is beyond all question, therefore, that before success can be hoped for, the problem will have to be tackled in a much more effective way than it has been up to the present. The localities where oil is believed to exist are already well defined. What is needed is that they should be thoroughly tested in a systematic way caS‘e''rn t tlfC'puW,''dufc"Dy a" careful search conducted in the same way as the most successful American explorations have been carried out. This could be done with light, mobile boring plants, which, whilst not expensive, could be utilised in sinking large numbers of bores in the various fields. The Commonwealth Government is conducting tests in New Guinea. It might very well do the same on the mainland—for the discovery on the mainland would be far and away more valuable to the Commonwealth than any discovery in New Guinea, which is open to attack by Foreign Powers in the event of war. The increase of the Commonwealth reward from £lO,OOO to £50,000 will no doubt act as an incentive to prospectors, but more definite steps are necessary if success ds to be achieved. 'ln the meantime, surely both Commonwealth and States can do something to put an end to the intolerable and criminal interference wth boring operations. The diffinr\»*~j|re not by any means insurmoun+rfhlp al d from the indications already riiaonvered, it i» apparent that rhe pfobavufjes ‘of success are so excel’°nt that further delay in instituting a thorough examination of Australian oil resources would be nothing short of a