THE PETROL AGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 112, 14 May 1927, Page 12

THE PETROL AGE.

FROM THE OIL WELL TO THE "FILL UP" PUMP. A ROMANCE OF MODERN INDUSTRY. Prophets have said that the day is not so far ahead when a'.l the oil wells of the world must inevitably be dried up. If that were to happen suddenly tomorrow, no fewer than 25,000,000 motor vehicles would be thrown on to a gigantic scrap-heap. How that vast fleet of vehicles—cars, aeroplanes, bicycles, tanks, submarines comes by the precious fluid which, is its life-blood makes one of the great romances of industry. To win it from the bowels of the earth where it is secreted, thousands of men have risked their fortunes and their lives. Many have been broken in the struggle. All have had to fight against great difficulties, dangers, and heartbreaks. The Pioneer Spirit. Petrol as we know it, or gasolene, is, of course, a product of petroleum, the thick black oil from which wc get also kerosene, paraffin, vaseline, fuel-oil for ships, and so on. It is found nearly always in the desolate places of the earth under barren deserts and beneath rocky mountains, far from the comfortable homes of man. Its recovery has therefore nearly always been an enterprise of hardship and expense.

America is by far the biggest producer of oil. From the United States comes no less than seventy per cent of the world's supply. Mexico also produces great quantities. Persia, the Caucasus, and the Dutch East Indies are the next largest producers. Scarcely any has yet been found in the British Empire. The first well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1559, but to-day over 100,000,000 tons are produced in a year.

A vast organisation has grown up in order that "the motorist, wherever he may be in the world, will be able to find his'tin of petrol near by.

The newest, and to Britain perhaps the most important, of the oilfields is the Persian. Though it is not in British territory it is owned by a British company, staffed by our. own engineers, and within the sphere of British influence. How it came to be developed is one of the great epics of commerce.

In 1860 William Knox D'Arcy, a man : of Devon, went to Australia. There he made a fortune in gold, but, instead of : retiring io enjoy his riches, his pioneering spirit looked for new fields of enter- • prise, and found them in the oil of Persia. In certain districts north of the Gulf a primitive local industry had been in existence for hundreds of years, the natives skimming the fluid from the surface of pools and streams into which it had flowed from adjacent petroleum springs. The oil thus crudely collected was used for lighting and for the healing of sores in man and beast, which the bitumen deposited from the oil was used for caulking native boats on the Tigris and the Euphrates. Thus even in primitive times there had been some idea of refining the crude petroleum, but no serious attempt had yet been made at commercial production. Failure and disappointment were to be the early lot of D'Arcy. The country was barren desert and desolate mountain. The inhabitants were wild nomads. There were no railways, and oil-drilling machinery is heavy and cumbersome. With a staff of 'only a few Englishmen and Canadians, D'Arcy drilled his first well a little north of Bagdad. He poured £300,000 of his own money into the sands of Persia. He failed, and Germans tried to buy him up. Lord Strathcona, that great builder of Empire, then came to his aid, and he tried again elsewhere, to fail a second time. A third time he drilled, and just as the headquarters of the company had decided to close down in despair, brilliant success came to him.

This was in a desolate valley called Maidan-i-Xaftun ("The Valley of Oil"), close to where, centuries before, 'the Zoroastrians, or fire-worshippers, had erected their Temple of Solomon. Here, on May 20, 100S, by the side of a track trodden by countless mules and camels since Biblical times, the great drill plunged through to the oil-well, and a black stream shot high into the air. They had struck a "gusher." From Oil Well to Motor Car. Fiom then the fortunes of the Persian petroleum fields never looked back, and the vast work of building refineries, railways, roads, steamers, and a distributing service went steadily on. The arid valley of Maidan-i-Xaftun and Abadan. the refining centre, have now become busy and populous centres, with offices, bungalows, hospitals, clubs, a dry dock, wireless, electricity, railways, and ilects of motor ears and ships. Over 36,000 people, including 30,000 Persians, .7000 Indians, and 1000 Europeans, ' are employed by the AngloPersian Company.

Before the oil finally reaches the motorists' petrol tank it has to go through an elaborate system. From the well the crude oil is conducted into pipelines which lead to the refinery. These pipelines, blasted through rocks and carried over mountains, often stretch for many miles. After refining, the crude oil is reduced to its various commercial forms. Its next stage is on the oil-steamer across the high seas, or, as in America, in a train across the continent. More often it is the crude oil itself that is shipped on to the tanker, the refining process taking place nearer the centre of distribution. The Anglo-Persian Company employs both ways. Some of its oil is refined on the Gulf at Abadan, while some is shipped in its crude state straight to Swansea, where it goes to the new Llandarcy refineries. After refining, nothing remains but for the petrol to be canned and distributed. It is taken to local distributing centres or storage depots, by train or motortanker. Then it issues through more pipes and is filled into the familiar square two-gallon cans—woman's work this—and goes forth to garages in evcrv town and village, ready for the motorist and his thirsty engine.