N.Z. OILFIELDS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 36, 13 February 1939, Page 6

N.Z. OILFIELDS

GREAT HIDDEN WEALTH STRATFORD MAN’S BELIEF . MARTON, Feb. 10. * dlv ' nin S instrument, perfected after 20 years’ experimentation and research by Mr. R. Davies, of nX Plymouth registers correctly, New S nd ha s enough petroleum oil to supply the Southern Hemisphere, and “t no great depth, according to an atWress on the "Geological Oil Fields of New Zealand" given to the Marton Chamber of Commerce and guests on Thursday evening by Mr T p Anderson, of Mahoe, Stratford. New Zealand was once under the sea and was forced up. not by vfficanic action, but by great pressure. This was proved by the limestone and papa silted bv L 0 C ° Un,ry large 'y consisted, by the contours of the hills and valleys, and by the marine X posits found even cn the tops of the hhighest hills. In the earth folds caused by shrinkage and pressure' d<? p°sits of marine sand which, by a process of chemical action produced great heat and gases th PS S -,v tter condensing into oil. All hartL? d ° n t “ NeW Zcßiand far had been where oil seepages were apparent, but in the speaker’s opinion d 0 reservoir would be tapped where there had been a leakage for thousands of years, as the leakage was fold 01106 ° f 3 fracture cr fau,t in the The speaker based his concluston tnat there were reservoirs of oil at no great depth as bores went, on the fact that New Zealand exhibited all the symptoms, of which volcanic activity was one of the most important and that the earth folds, which ran parallel from north-west to south-east were comparatively close, while the deposits of marine sand were of greater volume and were higher-test-mg than those ot the Mexican field* Mr Anderson was emphatic that the Government was making a great mistake tn granting long-term concessions to the big overseas combines In the meantime, the Petroleum Act. placed a bar against private Dominion enterprise prospecting He considered that the Government ba a( ' t,n ® in lhe best interests ot the Dominion it it hired the best experts and did its own drilling in a systematic way to preserve for New Zealanders the fruits of what he considered to be its greatest potential asset—the petroleum industry. “I am absolutely positive that here are vast oil fields in this counthol J A .' nderson declared, "and that the advice and the methods we have followed in the past are all wrong.” Mr. Davies, a friend of the speaker's, had spent 20 years of his deJ n trying to devise an instrument that would react to oil only—and he believed he had succeeded. Explaining the manner in which earth folds were formed and how thev acted as pockets or subterranean reservoirs Mr. Anderson said that he had by long investigation, discovered nfL?V e^ ag 5 S on the West Coas t P,'t c 1 a l d P « rovince and on the East Coast of tht Wellington Province, had exactly coincided with the track of the geological folds. At. intermediate points along these folds running transversely across the island’ were evidences of oil seepage or vol) came activity. The mountains and lock formations in New Zealand were he said, intrusions or faults, having been forced up through the sea silt by pressure. They were not volcanic, but the activty of the volcanic cones was due to great underground faults

°t Assures filled with marine sand which had developed tremendous hnat and pressure till a vent was formed probably with great violence. This nas how the speaker accounted for the Rotorua. Taupo and National I ark thermal regions, and the apparent. symapthy i n their respective periods of activity with White Island. Discussing the geological folds, Mr. Anderson said he had come to the conclusion that the overlay of these folds went, contrarwlse to those found m the northern hemisphere This would account, in part, for the failure of ail oil bores sunk in New Zea'and so far. "If my theory is right, we have sixmain oil fields in New Zealand, and the biggest of these is in the Mamaktt Hills, near Rotorua. But the experts tell us there is no oil in the National Park, Waikato, or Rotorua districts." Ihe speaker added that experiments were now being carried out at Tokotoko. near Dargaville, to test his theory. Jn his opinion, all the oil in the Dominion was shallow, and there was no dome oil as in California and Texas. There the folds were widely separated, but in this country they were closely spaced. What we should do is to keep our own oil and develop it ourselves. We have, in my opinion, enough oil to supply the whole of the southern hemisphere.” The speaker said he and his colleagues were not after monev; if they were they would be keeping the results of their experiments to themselves, and promoting companies. They were genuinely anxious that New Zealand should reap the benefit of its own mineral constituents. "The foreign countries know more about our geology than we know ourselves." he stated. Mr. Anderson said that. it. seemed, from research he and his colleagues had carried out, that the active volcanic areas in New Zealand were caused by chemical action in which mineral oil was the active ingredient. "New Zealand has everything to indicate oil—all the geological and mineral constituents of the world's greatest oil-fields. Why has it not been found? That is a question that has always been in my mind. "Obviously,” Mr. Anderson said, "There is something wrong with the methods being followed, and the thing to do is to find out what it is.” He said he believed he had found the answer. . It was a waste of time boring where seepages showed, as there had been a leakage for millions of years there. He believed the thing to do was to locate the oil fields over a "tight" or sealed fold, and to drill into the anticline, not the wedge. The folds could readily be chartered by geological survey, and he believed Mr. Davies' instrument would locate the oil fields.