PETROL INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 117, 20 May 1933, Page 14

PETROL INDUSTRY.

! TANKER VISITS LYTTELTON.

CAPTAIN'S REMINISCENCES

The tanker Vanja arrived at Lyttelton from San Peclro 011 Tuesday morning to discharge oil for New Zealand, and'after a brief stay left the same night for Melbourne. Her 9000 cubic tons of space was full of petrol for New Zealand and Australia, reports the Christchurch "Times." The Vanja is a twin-screw motor ship, of 6181 tons gross, and was built for a Norwegian firm at Gothenburg in 1929. The length of the ship is 408.3 feet, her breadth 55.3 feet, and she draws 32.3 feet.

This is the first time that a tanker has called direct at Lyttelton from San Pedro. The large quantity of 500,000 gallons was pumped into the Lyttelton tanks.

The master of the vessel (Captain Neilsen) has a Norwegian crew aboard, and the long, low craft, in the way it is kept, is more like a yacht than a tanker. The skipper was familiar with the New Zealand coast 25 years ago, when he visited the Dominion in sailing ships. His first inquiry when interviewed was whether the Maori was still 011 the ferry run. Jt was a new ship when he was hero last, and he recalled how, 011 its first or second voyage, it went right through a wharf at Wellington. Other New Zealand ships the captain inquired after were the Moana, in which he had a trip as a passenger, and the Kakapo, 011 which he served.

"You have oil here, in Taranaki, have you not?" asked Captain Neilsen. "I remember taking some away once. It was dark oil, not well refined. There should be plenty of. oil in a country like New Zealand."

From his observations relative to his occupation of carrying oil and petrol, Captain Neilsen indicated that develop- 1 ments in the great industry were liable j to be interesting. Russian petrol was ; gaining in output, and much was being exported to France and Spain, and other European countries. Russia, however, would soon have a strong competitor in j the British, American, and French interests in the Iraq oilfields. An 800-kilo-metre pipe line was being laid from , Iraq to the Mediterranean, and when the j full force of that competition was felt' there would be a marked effect. In the ; meantime, however, there was not j enough trade for the many tankers that j were built to cope with the output of a few years ago. In many of the Nor- j wegian and Swedish ports there were tankers lying idle, many of thein new ships.