oil prospecting'

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 139, 15 June 1938, Page 18

oil prospecting'

SEARCH INTENSIFIED. QUEENSLAND OPERATIONS. GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE (From Our Own Correspondent.) BRISBANE, June 8. The advances of £10,000 and £10,500 respectively to Roma Blocks Oil Company, Limited, and Drillers, Limited, by, the Federal Government to enable them to intensify their search for oil have directed attention to the Roma district of Queensland, where for 30 years the search for oil has been going on. Gas was first discovered at Roma in 1900 in a water bore and it flowed at a great pressure for five years. In 1908 iias came in, in another bore being gunk for water, and it flowed freely until it accidentally caught on fire, when it burned fiercely for alnmt two months. Then followed attempts by Australian drillers to discover oil, hut no results were obtained. Between 1915 and 1921 two American drillers were emploved at the Government bore at Roma. In 1922 further experts were brought out from California, and a gas flow of several million cubic feet a <lav was. obtained. The gas was cut off in the course of fishing operations for lost tools and the operations were abandoned. In 1927 gas came in at Roma Oil Corporation's No. 1 well and flowed with jireat persistency. Crude petrol was obtained from the gas, about :!000 gallons being produced from 500,000.000 cubic feet of "wet" gas in 10 months. Crude oil has since l>een discovered ill other bores, but not in commercial quantities. Geologists generally are agreed that oil strata exist in the district, and should oil l>e discovered in commercial quantities, it will solve one of Australia's major problems.