No Oil Found At Kumara Junction

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30365, 14 February 1964, Page 10

No Oil Found At Kumara Junction

The Taramakau No. 1 well at Kumara Junction, on the \\ est Coast, is another disappointment in the New Zealand search for oil. Final tests yesterday showed only salt water. The drilling crew is returning to Taranaki to carry out further repair work al the Kapuni Nos. 1 and 3 wells; but the search for West Coast oil has not been abandoned by Shell-8.P.-Todd Oil Services, Ltd. Plans Io drill another well at Arahura in the middle of the year are not affected.

The result of the test was announced in Christchurch yesterday by Mr J. B. Price, chairman of the company. Porous intervals in the lower portion around 5700 ft of the Kumara well had shown hydrocarbons during drilling, but on test only salt water had been produced. The well was drilled to 6985 ft. and was now to be plugged and abandoned. As a West Coaster, Mr Price was among the more disappointed. The cost of the well had been £160,000, he said. This was the fifth failure in the nine holes drilled so far—-

two in Poverty Bay, six n Taranaki, and one on the West Coast. The cost of oil search in New Zealand so far by the two companies with which Shell is associated —Mr Price is the senior Shell executive in New Zealand —was put by him ait £Bm to £9m. This was almost as much as had been spent on the refinery at Whangarcu, he added.

This prompted a question to Mr J. H. Loudon, chairman of the Royal Dutch-Shell group, who was in Christchurch for the day. on how far oil exploration went before the promoters decided to call a halt

Explorers were always hopeful, he replied, but when such a large amount of money was being spent there must come a time when the economics demanded a halt Mr Price said work on the two wells at Kapuni would be cleaning up to convert them to producing condition.