Farmer Not Excited

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 1

Farmer Not Excited

The owner of the farm on which the well is to be drilled is not excited by the preparations. Mr Saunders said he was not even going to buy a 10-gallon hat.

“The oil company has leased 2} acres of my land for two years. The company men have been most cooperative, and are going to pay a fair price for the use of my land. But I get nothing more if they strike oil,” Mr Saunders said ruefully. “I am told that if they strike oil in Texas, the owner of the land gets a royalty of one barrel in every eight. But the Crown owns the oil in New Zealand, and I can’t see myself becoming a big Brookside, oilman millionaire.”

Mr Saunders has been farming his 185-acre sheep

and grazing property for 10 years. “The house is only 15 chains away from the oil-well site. They will be working round the clock, and it’s going to be pretty noisy with the generator motor going, the drilling ... I don’t know what the neighbours are going to say. “The site is in young grass It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been old pasture; we are pretty short of greenfeed round here,” Mr Saunders said. Mr Saunders said he could have delayed the oil company moving in, but could not have stopped it, as it had an oil-exploration licence over the whole area, and a drilling licence. He knew there had been seismic tests for oil in the district about four to six years ago, but had not realised they were near his property. “Company Very Good” “The oil company manager was very good about it all,” he said. “They have put a travel road into the site (about four chains in from a road boundary), have piled all the top-soil from the site up and have to restore the site when they finish. “It will be a great thing for the South Island, and New Zealand, if they make a real strike,” Mr Saunders said.. He said that his four children had been very excited when work started. Now they

had lost a great deal of interest, and could see enough from the homestead. “The oil men don’t want publicity,” he added. "They say that the generators and electric cables are sources of danger, and when they are working, moving drill stems and other equipment it is dangerous for outsiders .on the site. “One of the head men said thdy might hold an open day and then shut the site to the public.” Mr Saunders said he had no idea how long drilling would go on. The lease was for two years because it took a long time to get rid of spoil from the well. Owners’ Rights The Petroleum Act, 1937, gives the Crown the ownership of all oil in New Zealand; landowners having only surface rights. The legislation was enacted mainly to attract - big oil companies, which in some states of the United States and in other parts of the world have been embarrassed by laws that give landowners rights and royalties. A strike would be made on one farm, and immediately small oil companies and speculators would buy leases over surrounding farms to put down their own wells or sell the lease to the big companies.