TARANAKI OIL FIELDS LTD.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 143, 18 June 1926, Page 4

TARANAKI OIL FIELDS LTD.

WORK ON EAST COAST

\ circular ha? been issued to shareholders in the Taranaki Oilfields. Ltd., reporting progress which furnishes some interesting information with reg-ard to the possibilities of tbe Walapu district, some 17 isiile.s south-west or the Fast Cape, where boring was started in May. Mr. Chester W. Wasnburne, the American geologist. In a report. Rives details or examinations made, states that where the bore 13 being- put down Is a g-ood tight trap, suitable, for the ancumlation or oil. He considers that No. 1 bore will pass throug-h 500 to possibly 1000 reel or mangatu beds, and then penetrate 1500 to 2000 reet of the Tapuwaeroa rormatinn. and then enter the Raukumar.i series. The expert adds: — "We expect oil and gas in the sands or both the Mangatu and the Tapuwaeroa formations. Several porous "sands," covered by thick, impervious shales, and capable of making good reservoirs of oil, are known to be present within reasonable drilling depth. Geologic conditions are such that the depth or these cannot be estimated within several hundred feet, but there is no doubt that they are present at depths easily drilled. The first attractive "sand" is the basal conglomerate of the Mangatu rormation. This is expected between 500 and 1000 feet. It is over 500 feet thick at its nearest complete exposure three miles away, on tbe Walapu River, above Rotokautuku bridge, but more distant exposures show only about 100 feet of conglomerate, whlcu, however, is much more than needed to make big oil wells. In the next 2000 feet below this basal conglomerate there are several "sands" in the Tapuwaeroa formation, which are very attractive, because they contain oil at many nearby outcrops, which can be extracted with chlorororm, and because one or them produced rour barrels of high-grade oil. This was In the old Rotokautuku bore, located only three miles south-east or your bore, and not as well situated as yours with reference to the geologic structure. Naturally we expect better results rrom these sands in your bore. Their thickness varies from twenty to over fifty feet, which is entirely adequate, considering the high quality orthe oil." The report ends: "The most thorough geologic study or the structure In any new territory will not give definite assurance or finding oil in commercial quantity—only by drilling can this be determined. In this case it Indicates the probability or finding oil on the Mangaoporo anticline, in quantities which no man can predict. Some or the sands are thick enough to make big wells."