EXTENT OF AMERICAN OIL INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 151, 23 March 1938, Page 13

EXTENT OF AMERICAN OIL INDUSTRY

Visitor Gives Figures ADVICE TO NEW ZEALAND ’By Telegraph—Press Association. Christchurch, March 22. “You just drill a little well and. oil conies gushing up and flows over into your tanks. Then one of the big companies comes along with a lOin. pipe, opens a valve, and sends the oil flowing to the refineries. Then you take a trip round the world.” This was the pen picture of the American oil industry given this morning by Mr. R. T. Colter, an oil man from Los Angeles, who is here on a holiday visit. Facts and figures ot the American oil industry were quoted with bewildering speed by Mr. Colter. “It is not all as easy as I made it out,” he confessed. “I have been in oil since 1921. That was when I paid to learn the game. The man who taught me made 400,000 dollars while I made 80,000 dollars and I owned the lease.” The United States of America produces 3,350,000 barrels of oil a day. “That is a lot of oil,” remarked Mr. Colter. ‘“They tell me you people around these parts in New Zealand are playing about with oil some place. Have you got any money to play with? It costs a lot. It is no good going wild-catting. You have got to do it right. It costs a minimum of 40,000 dollars to drill a well. You have got to have a superintendent to whom you pay 400 dollars a month and he gets a 2 per cent, ride on every well.” He said that the deepest well in the States went down 13,000 feet and cost 500,000 dollars to. drill. That was at San Joaquin. Signal Hill was the richest field.