DOBSON COAL BORES

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 November 1944, Page 4

DOBSON COAL BORES

MINISTER REVIEWS PROGRESS WELLINGTON, November 2. “The prospect of locating a substantial field of workable bituminous coal of good gas-making quality has been greatly enhanced by the drilling operations of the Mines Department slice the State acquired the Dobson colliery area,” said the Minister of Mines (Mr Webb). He announced that one of the bores at Dobson had penetrated a coal seam 13ft 6in m thickness at a depth of 2020 feet. Tne Minister said that another bore m the area was down more than 1900 feet and it was expected that the final result from this bore would be available shortly. , j The Minister pointed out that some months ago the first bore drilled at Dobson penetrated a coal seam 10ft 3in thick at a depth of 1500 feet. This was located 15 chains ahead of the colliery workings, and the two later holes were 40 chains further to the south or roughly 55 chains from the mine workings. Further deep drilling would still have to be done to assess ’the potentialities of the seam with reasonable accuracy, said the Minister. Owing to the depth at which the coal existed, very deep shafts would have to be sunk to work the coalfield. This would be very costly and might necessitate the importation of the most modern equipment used for sinking deep shafts. The Minister said that a conference of Mines Department officers and geologists would be held at Greymouth next week to consider the new situation at Dobson and to advise the Government as to the policy, not only in regard to further drilling, but also on the future method of working the existing colliery. A further interesting feature of the bore which penetrated the coal seam at 2020 feet was that at 1792 feet a core of grit formation of a thickness of roughly 15 feet was saturated with oil, much more strongly than was the case in a similar discovery in a bore some months ago. Four samples have been sent to the Dominion analyst for examination. The possible significance of the greater oil saturation of the core in the latest well was being considered by the Mines Department in conjunction with oil experts from the New Zealand' Petroleum Company, Ltd., said the Minister.