SEARCH FOR OIL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 16, 19 January 1940, Page 8

SEARCH FOR OIL.

NEW PLANT FOR N.Z.

MAY GO TO TARANAKI. ' AMERICAN EXPERT ARRIVES. Oil-boring equipment of the latest design, valued at nearly £l<n>,(HM), is to arrive in New Zealand next April «nd will be assembled on the west coast of the North Island, possibly in Taranaki, to assist in the intensive search for oil that is Tiow l»eing carried out throughout the Dominion.

This announcement was made to-day by -Mr. Charles La Mar. an oil borer, who arrived in the Monterey. He is a brother of Mr. H. L. La Mar, the drilling superintendent at Totangi, Gisborne.

Mr. La Mar said his company had the plant on order, and it would be capable of drilling to a depth of 15,000 ft. While payable oil had been found at that depth in the United States, he Paid that the usual depth was l>etween 5000 ft and 10,000 ft.

Another oil man travelling in the Monterey is Mr. C. St. J. Bremner, a geologist for the Standard Oil Company, who is going out to the East, calling at Dutch New r Guinea and Burma. He said that the war had not materially affected supplies of. oil as far as the United States was concerned, as tremendous supplies of fuel were being obtained for the belligerents from Venezuela, Europe and Asia.

Mr. Bremner said that Germany was a large pre-war importer of aviation gasoline, and the opinion held in military circles in the United States was that Germany would be increasingly short of supplies as the war proceeded.