OIL POTENTIALITIES

Taranaki Daily News, 4 December 1926, Page 2

OIL POTENTIALITIES

FURTHER BORING JUSTIFIED TARANAKI A LIKELY FIELD. i CAREFUL SURVEY ESSENTIAL. (By Mr. W. H. Talour.) At the Palmerston North Citizens' Lunch Club on Tuesday, Mr. W. \. Talour, of Melbourne, discoursed on the petroleum potentialities of the Dominion, states the Manawatu Times. His subject, said the speaker, had caused of late considerable interest throughout Australasia, and he himself had been intimately connected with petroleum enterprise in the Commonwealth where considerably more than £2,000,000 had been spent in attempts to. discover petroleum. To date, howpver, none had been found, excepting, of course. New Guinea, that was worth talkin'" about. ? in New Zealand, few knew that tbe existence of petroleum within the Dominion’s shores had been known for the past 60 years. Attempts to discover the resources had been made in Taranaki, especially in the neighbourhood .if New Plymouth, but, although much eapi tai had been expended in sinking boles it had been done without proper geo logical surveys having been made. In all the oil producing countries of th?, world successful sinkings had, in nearly all cases, been preceded by careful geological surveys, which were absolute ly essential. The companies operating in New Zealand were now preceding their operations with detailed geological suq veys, and in doing-this were, to a greait extent, minimising their chances of dij appointment.

Many attempts at discovering oil had been nade in other parts of New Zcalandi notably on the West Coast of ths South Island, but here sufficient evi deuce had not been found to make the sinking of bores a commercial proposition. Although so far all the work done in the Taranaki district had been moi« or less unsuccessful, it did not follow that there were not large areas of petroleum there. Further, it was not genet ally known tliat from the oil boring operations in Taranaki ahead}', some 2,000,000 gallons had been obtained. The speaker referred to the visit made to New Zealand in 1910-11 by one 01. the most noted petroleum geologists in the.world, Dr. Wanner, who had written a most able report in reference to the areas where boring was in operation '■> Taranaki, where, he said, the geological structure was not unfavourable for the ultimate successful commercialising of the petroleum. Dr. Wanner had been amazed to find that the Government departments had so little data available for the careful surveying of the petroleum potentialities in New Zealand. The work done in recent years by Professor Washburn, of U.S.A., who had been succeeded by Dr. Andrew, of Otago University, revealed, as a result of most eaieful geological surveying, the fact that the shareholders in the Taranaki oilfields had every reason to be optim istic in regard to the future of their heroic attempts to commercialise New Zealand petroleum. It was apparent to him that if only part of the evidence of the presence of oil in New Zealand had been found in Australia, hundreds of boring plants would be operating. There was no doubt that nature had been kind to New Zealand in the way of petroleum deposits, but it should always be remembered that the geology of the country was exceedingly complex. New Zealand was, on a population basis, the second country in the world in regard to the number of motor-cars and the use of motor transport, and it was a fact that the big shipping concerns in the Dominion were rapidly transforming their vessels into the oilburning class. Supposing (as human nature had not yet reached the stage when wars were avoidable) that the scene of operations during the next conflict was to be in the Pacific! If we 'lid not develop our petroleum resources, where would we get our supplies from? As a well-known American military authority had said, it was necessary that every country should develop its own petroleum resources as quickly as possible. Concluding, Mr. Talour said that there weig" two companies operating in petro 1 leum prospecting side by side, and the j business men of New Zealand should I give them all their sympathy and con ■ sideration. There had not yet beyn time [ for development to take place tn New | Zealand as in older countries, but, when j careful mapping of the oil-bearing fields had been carried out, there was no reason why the petroleum industry should not go ahead and reach the standard al- - attained by the other oil-bearing countries of the world.