EAST COAST OIL

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 141, 16 June 1936, Page 10

EAST COAST OIL

STATE NOT INTERESTED

MINISTER'S STATEMENT

A denial that the State intended to search for oil on the East Coast was made today by the Minister of Mines (the Hon. P. C. Webb).

"My attention has been drawn to an article appearing in an Auckland periodical on June 10. The headings to the article were 'Petroleum Fever," 'State to Join in Search for East Coast Oil,'" said the Minister. "Reference is made in the article to an announcement by myself that my Department proposed to investigate the possibilities of further development in the East Coast oil field. "I want to make it perfectly clear that I made no such announcement. It is true that I recently referred to the possibility of an early and intensive investigation by experts of the East Coast oil fields, but I gave np indication that the investigation or the experts would be in any way associated with the Government. The activities, if they eventuate, will be entirely sponsored by private interests. I have not even been approached with any request for financial assistance from the Government towards the cost of the investigation or any subsequent operations. "I regret that such an incorrect interpretation should have been placed on my remarks."