SEARCH FOR OIL IN TARANAKI

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27634, 15 April 1955, Page 12

SEARCH FOR OIL IN TARANAKI

£1,000,000 Project Announced STATE SUPPORT PROMISED (New Zealand Press Association, WELLINGTON. April 14. The Minister of Mines (Mr W. Sullivan) announced today that a fresh oil exploration programme in the Taranaki-Rangitikei districts is to be undertaken jointly by the Shell and Todd interests at a cost of perhaps £ 1 000 000. Oil exploration was a costly .and highly specialised task, said the Minister, and the Government was therefore gratified to know of the renewed efforts to be made in this field by an organisation which had at its command adequate resources in both money and technical skill. Mr Sullivan said a considerable amount of preliminary investigational work had already been carried out, and there had been detailed negotiations with him and with the Departments of Mines and Scientific and Industrial Research. / “Exploratory work of this nature may cost about £1,000,000,” said the Minister, ‘’and the oil people considered that before embarking on such a programme they must know exactly what their rights and obligations would be, if oil was discovered. This was only reasonable, and it is intended to introduce amending legislation as early as these lines, and to make certain other improvements to the Petroleum Act, 1937.’? . . The fundamental principles in the Petroleum Act would not be disturbed, said the Minister. “This will be an important step forward in ihe search for oil in the Dominion,” said Mr Sullivan, “and the Government is wholeheartedly behind the venture and will support it and others of a like nature in every reasonable and legitimate way. . “The discovery of oil in commercial quantities would be of immense benefit to this Dominion, and I am sure the people of this country will join with me in wishing the new organisation every success in the enterprise,” the Minister concluded. Preliminary Agreement The Shell Company of New Zealand, Ltd., and Todd Bros., Ltd., had signed a preliminary agreement covering exploration for petroleum in the Tara-naki-Rangitikei areas, the managing director of the Shell Company (Mr J. B. Price) said in Wellington today. The preliminary agreement applied to areas currently held by licence or under application by Todd Bros., Ltd. The arrangement included the provision by the Shell Company of about £1.000,000 in finance, and technical supervision for carrying out the exploration programme, said Mr Price. The programme, which envisaged exploration by the most modern methods —including test drilling—would be begun as soon as formal agreements had been concluded. Mr Bryan Todd, a director of Todd Bros., said in a statement that there were several areas in New Zealand, among them the Taranaki-Rangitikei area, where the geological requirements for the occurrence of oil in commercial quantities might be found. Although some exploration had been done in the past, principally before World War 11, new ideas and greatly advanced techniques for exploration and for recovery of oil had since been developed. “Additional important geological work has been one which throws new light on certain critical problems, and upon a review of these recent developments we _ have felt that the possibility of the discovery of oil in New Zealand should be reassessed,” Mr Todd said.