OIL PROSPECTING

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 82, 7 April 1938, Page 10

OIL PROSPECTING

LICENCES SOUGHT

MANY APPLICATIONS

FOUR GRANTED

Seventy-eight applications from six different groups have been received by the Minister of Mines (the Hon. P. C. Webb) for petroleum prospecting licences, and four licences for the Gisborne district are to be issued at an early date. Questioned about the others, the Minister said that he was anxious to treat them'all as urgent, but in view of the fact that there were numerous applications for' similar areas, it would take some time to consider each application.

"Everyone is aware that last session the Petroleum Act was passed to facilitate the search for oil," said Mr. Webb. "In the Act provision was made for the notification and registration of contracts made before December 31,, 1936, between any person or company and land owners entitling the former to prospect or bore for oil. Persons or companies establishing the existence of such contracts and notifying them before March 31, 1938, are entitled to make preferential applications for prospecting or'mining licences under the new Act over the lands concerned. "The period for the notification of existing contracts having now expired, I am in the position to consider all applications for rights under the new legislation. To date seventyeight applications have been received from six different groups'. Many of these applications are' over identical areas, and I will experience considerable difficulty in making a decision as to which applications should be, granted. There is one district, however, in which the claims of one group are so clearly predominant that I'have been' able to make an immediate decision. I refer to the Gisborne district. In this locality a tremendous amount of preliminary work has been carried out over a number of years and the applicants have'assured me that they are in the position to commence boring operations immediately the necessary licences are granted to them. Four prospecting licences covering ten different areas totalling approximately 800 square miles will therefore be issued at an early date in the'name of the New Zealand' Petroleum Company Limited. The interests behind this company are: Taranaki (N.Z.) Oil Fields No Liability, Gisborne (N.Z.) I Oil Fields Limited. Waitangi (N.Z.) Oil Fields Limited, Waiapu (N.Z.) dil Fields, Limited, Moturoa Oil Fields Limited, Vacuum Oil Company ProI prietary Limited, Oil Search Limited.