Oil And Gas Exploration TEXANS TAKE OVER WAIKATO RIGHTS

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31981, 7 May 1969, Page 32

Oil And Gas Exploration TEXANS TAKE OVER WAIKATO RIGHTS

(New Zealand Press Association)

HAMILTON, May 6. A Texas corporation has taken over the oil and gas exploration rights to 405 square miles of land in the Lower Waikato Basin.

The Republic Mineral Corporation, of Houston, announced today through its New Zealand legal representative (Mr N. W. Thom, of Auckland) that it had bought the mineral licence from two Hamilton men, Messrs T. C. Orr and J. E. Knight, for an undisclosed sum.

The exploration area taken over by the corporation extends from just north of Hamilton to 22 miles south of Auckland.

No drilling programme has yet been announced by the corporation, which is the latest American concern to join the search for oil and gas in New Zealand, but it is expected to be extensive and to begin this year. Today’s announcement said that the American corporation intended to form a New Zealand company with a 50 per cent New Zealand shareholding, and that its secretary and general counsel (Mr Lew Harpold) would soon arrive in the Waikato to make the necessary arrangements. “It is the wish of the corporation that this should be a joint venture with the public of New Zealand,” Mr Thom said. “Republic Mineral also hope to use the gas found

at Horotiu by Messrs Orr and Knight, and feed it to local industry.”

Regular Flow

Signs of gas were first found at Horotiu. about 50 years ago, but it was not until 1967 that Messrs Orr and Knight sunk a well and discovered a regular gas flow at a depth of about 480 feet. A second well was sunk by the Hamilton drilling firm of Brown Brothers, Ltd, last year, and this time gas was found at about 530 feet Gas is still being burnt off at both wells. D.S.I.R. Report In October of last year the managing director of Brown Bros (Mr R. A. W. Brown) released a report on the area prepared by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, which said that the Horotiu gas could be permeating through a layer of sand from a major source. There have also been other attempts to find oil or gas in the Waikato Basin. New Zealand Petroleum, Ltd, sunk a 1250 ft-deep well at Puketaha in 1963, but without success: and then Brown Bros drilled a 2600 ft-deep well for the same company in River Road a few months later. This produced a small amount of inflammable gas at

about 2000 feet, and the following year New Zealand Petroleum sunk a third well at Te Kowhai, but basement rock was encountered at about 5800 feet. “A Great Thing” The Waikato Basin rights take-over was today described as “a great thing for New Zealand” by Messrs Orr and Knight. “A geologist has told us that the field is bigger than Kapuni and will be more economical and that the gas is of better quality,” Mr Orr said. “And it is right in the heart of industrial land.”

Hawke’s Bay Oil Quest (N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 6. Oil drilling is to begin at a new site near Dannevirke. Preparations for the Rakaiatai No. 1 well are almost complete according to a spokesman for BP, Shell, Aquitaine and Todd Petroleum Development, Ltd. and drilling will begin after the drilling of the Taradale No. 1 well, near Napier, is finished. Drilling at Taradale was down to 235 ft yesterday; the final depth is expected to be about 6000 ft. The Western Geophysical vessel Bayou Chico has left New Zealand after completing an offshore seismic survey off South Canterbury. Information recorded on magnetic tapes will be processed by computer in London.