OIL FROM BURMA

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 141, 17 June 1930, Page 10

OIL FROM BURMA

LUCK OF THE BORE. SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGE. '.DIFFICULTIES-DESCRIBED. The pursuit of oil in Burma and India is a business attended by much risk, according to Mr. T. A. Barrett, an-officer of the Indo-Burma Petroleum Oil Company, who, with his wife, arrived by the Maunganui this . morning. ., He is on six months' furlough, which he intends to spent in the Dominion. • . Though there was risk, h<3 said, there was adequate compensation in the profit accruing from a lucky bore. - "It might seem strange to use the word 'lucky' in connection with a business," Mr. Barrett said, "but truly it is a matter, of luck. ; The country is mountainous in some parts, and particularly inaccessible. When our geologist says 'bore/ Ave do so, be the situation what t may. It is thought that the oil follows a subterranean passage, and- the river underground is not particular where it goes. Sometimes we are lucky, and sometimes not. The expenditure is enormous." One firm out East, he said, recently spent £500,000 in putting down a bore, which proved to be quite useless. Still, the profits were there, and business was good. Cough of the Tiger. His firm was not one of"the, largest out there, he said, but even.so it had oil-fields all over Burma and India. They had just struck a good flow at.a place called Yaunjung, but the boring'had been difficult. He spoke of queer, almost unpronouncable names of places far away up in the hills of Burma, where the party seeking oil were almost the : first intruders. "All the members of the party are armed," he said, "and when they return they sometimes tell tales of wild things which have crashed away through the underground, startled by the first intruders of their domain. Some of the hill coimtry is practically virgin even yet. They will tell how they have felt the presence of wild life at night just in, the shadow beyond the glare cast by their camp-fire. Tigers are- hot unknown, and their coughing grunt -in the night is not reassuring. " ■ \

"These things are becoming more uncommon now," said Mr. Barrett, "but in the old days it was no uncommon thing for elephants to trumpet their dismay and defiance, just a little distance from the fields. But wild life is being driven further and further back into the hills." . ■ A Variety of Talents. "However, tigers, elephants and .the like the. least of our difficulties. In these out-of-the-way places there are no railways. We have to build our own. These run away with laks of rupees. So you can see that we have on our staff a variety of talents. We have geologists and sportsmen, and engineers of different kinds, and all are necessary." '■• The crude oil was barrelled in the usual fashion, and was largely shipped from head oiiice at .Rangoon, Mr. Barrett, added. He did not see the "romance of;the East." The oil was produced in the ordinary way, undkr humdrum conditions, and shipped in the familiar ugly barrels. ■ '-'