OIL PROSPECTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 September 1938, Page 6

OIL PROSPECTING

THE TOTANGI DOME BORE RIG OF NEW DESIGN ERECTED (By Telegraph—Press Association.) GISBORNE, September 9. Prospects of the institution of a nonstop drilling schedule at the New Zealand Petroleum Company’s prospecting site at Totangi Dome, Ngatapa, grow brighter, and, although the erection of drilling rig and the installing of power units and other equipment at the site has been delayed several weeks by wet weather, it is hoped that by the end of September a date will be set for the actual “spudding in” of the drill. The erection of the framework of the rig has been completed within the past few days after three weeks of intensive work. The structure rising 138 feet above the drilling platform, is tested to carry a weight of 500 tons suspended from the cross-beams, which surmount it, and in its fabrication a total of 60 tons of steel has been used. The ‘ rig is of a special new design and to superintend its erection the manufacturers sent to New Zealand Mr C. P. Macdonald, American rigging expert, who will complete his work in Poverty Bay within a few weeks. The general assumption among the field staff is that several months will be occupied in driving the first well down to the horizon to be fixed by geological experts as the most likely to produce oil. In this first effort on the Totangi Dome, careful testing and recording of strata will be a feature of the drilling programme. The natural effect will be a slower rate of progress with the drill.