OIL PRODUCTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 107, 9 May 1939, Page 10

OIL PRODUCTION

NEW ZEALAND FIELDS

"AWAITING DISCOVERY"

SIR COLIN FRASER'S

BELIEF

"I have never wavered in the belief that important commercial oilfields await discovery in New Zealand," said Sir Colin Fraser, of Victoria, chairman of directors of the New Zealand Petroleum Co., Ltd., and Taranaki (N.Z.) Oilfields, who arrived in Wellington by the Wanganella from Sydney today. Sir Colin intends visiting the Taranaki and Gisborne fields shortly.

He expressed himself as very well satisfied with the organisation set up by the New Zealand Petroleum Company and the systematic effort being made to find and produce oil in the Dominion. Equipped with ample financial resources and a highly-trained and experienced technical staff,' the company intended to examine thoroughly and test the extensive prospecting areas granted under licence by the New Zealand Government. • ' | The work, said Sir Colin, was being followed with keen' interest in Australia as well as in New Zealand, since it seemed likely that the solution of the all-important oil problem, affecting the Commonwealth as well as the Dominion, would be solved by the discovery of productive oilfields in the Gisborne and Taranaki districts. "These localities," he said, "are nearer the big oil-consuming centres of Sydney and Melbourne than is any potential oil-bearing territory known at present. The importance from the standpoint of Empire defence which will attach to this search for oil in New Zealand is more clearly realised than ever at the present time." DRILLING OF WELLS. The drilling "of wells through the strata in certain of the structural areas in the Gisborne district, he said, was by no means an easy job, and progress was, therefore, slow. "Moreover, the earlier wells drilled were exploratory, core-drilling being done at frequent intervals to obtain a solid rock-core for geological examination and to determine the rock sequence. The depth at which oil-bearing beds could be looked for was relatively deep. This applied to the Totangi area, which was now being drilled, where significant oil seepages occurred, and where, although the bore-hole on May 2 was 4020 feet deep, the drill had not yet penetrated the full thickness of tertiary strata overlying the cretaceous series which it is sought to test for oil. In other structural areas to be tested on the Gisborne side, the potential oil-bearing rocks lay nearer the surface and drilling should be easier. In Taranaki the inauguration of a drilling campaign would have been unwise, if not useless, without a prior extensive geological examination, aided by the employment of modern geophysical methods. This was now in progress. Such methods of attack on the difficult problem of locating, in the sedimentary rocks lying concealed beneath the superficial blankets of volcanic ash, structural conditions favourable for the accumulation of oil, were unknown when oil exploration was in progress in Taranaki in 1924 and 1925. That oil existed in Taranaki was proved by the production at Moturoa of some 90,000 barrels, and it was reasonable to believe that a correct diagnosis of structural conditions throughout the province, which had hitherto been impossible, would guide the company to drill the most promising areas and locate and develop producing oil fields. . ■ IN TARANAKI. "Drilling conditions in the Taranaki Province," added Sir Colin, "should prove easy, judging by the experience of the Taranaki Oil Fields Company. A well at Tarafca exceeding 5000 feet in depth was drilled with ordinary standard cable tools." The New Zealand Petroleum Company would shortly have expended on purchasing and.installing drilling and other plant and equipment, establishing the business and technical organisations, and also drilling, at Totangi and carrying on geological, geophysical, and other work, the £250,000 provided in the first place by the shareholders comprising the leading American oil companies,- and for which those companies received deferred shares which did not participate in profits made by the company.