THE SEARCH FOR OIL.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 April 1921, Page 2

THE SEARCH FOR OIL.

EXPLORATION IN PAPUA. AN UNFAVORABLE REPORT. Sydney, April 12. Although hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent by the Federal Government and by private firins in seeking for oil in Australia and in the neighboring territory of Papua, nothing worth while has been found, and now both Government and people are beginning to regard the search as hopeless. There is, apart from the value of oil, plenty of inducement to search. The Commonwealth offers a reward of £25,000 for oil in payable quantities, and the New South Wales Government has also a standing offer of £lO,OOO. Oil is such a tremendously’ important thing in this country of wide distances. The motor, in cars and aeroplanes and road transport, promises to solve many of Australia’s most acute problems of communication, if only a cheap fuel for the motor can be found. At present Australia is in. the grip of the overseas oil trusts, and is being well and thoroughly bled. The hopes of Australia certainly centred on the Papuan oil seepages. There are signs of oil all over Western Papua. In one or two places it is actually trickling from the earth at the rate of two or three gallons a week; in others there is such a strong outflow of gas that it can be lit and will burn for hours. Government engineers and experts have been digging about in this wild and lonely country for years, and they have discovered nothing worth while. There is oil about, they say; but search and bore as they will, they cannot find it in sufficient quantities to give it commercial value.

A couple of years ago a working alliance was made between the Commonwealth Government and the Anglo-Per-sian Oil Company and a combined expedition was sent away into Western Papua. A repprt just received from the man in charge is of a gloomy and pessimistic character. His summary is/couched in terms of geology, but it seems to indicate that the wide area already examined is very much disturbed by faults, and is not favorable to the accumulation of oil in commercial quantities. and there is no structure in the

area examined good enough to warrant further testing. The report also emphasises the tremendous difficulty of getting supplies te the uncivilised country and of maintaining comnußica4>h>ns.