TARANAKI OIL DRILLING

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28540, 20 March 1958, Page 8

TARANAKI OIL DRILLING

Start Before End Of Year

"The Press" Special Service AUCKLAND, March 19.

Before the end of the year drilling for oil at Taranaki will have started. Mr J. F. Sinclair, manager of the south-eastern area department of the Shell Petroleum Company, London, said that his company would have completed its seismic and ground surveys by October or November and would be drilling before the end of the year. In a few months Shell would have spent £lm in search of oil in New Zealand.

“Nobody puts New Zealand very high on the list of possibles for oil production,” said Mr Sinclair. One rig would be used in Taranaki to find out what type of crude oil and how much of it was there. It would cost £4O or £5O an hour 24 hours a day to run.

New Zealand did not have a very large total consumption of petroleum products, said Mr Sinclair. He thought it was premature to discuss building a refinery here to use imported crude oil until the location and nature of the crude oil in New Zealand had been ascertained. If oil in any quantity was found at Taranaki it might be five years before its potentialities were properly assessed, according to Mr Sinclair.

In the next five years it was estimated New Zealand would increase its consumption of petroleum products by 400,000 tons which would mean capital investment both here and overseas totalling £2om. On the marketing side, said Mr Sinclair, a “largish” part of the sum would be spent here.