SEARCH FOR OIL UNDER THE CHINA SEA
LONDON. Sir Godfrey Mitchell, one of Great Britain’s foremost construction engineers, has left here for Borneo to supervise oil-drilling operations under the bed of the China Sea. His departure highlights Britain’s efforts to devedop new supplies of oil from no.n-dollar sources. “This China Sea project is no fantasy,” an official of the British Malayan Petroleum Company, which is carrying out the plan, said. “As the land wells of the world are slowly drying up and the need to find fresh sources grows, experts have plans to drill through the ocean depths to a thousand or more feet.'* At Seria, a north-west Borneo village not marked on ordinary maps, the company is rapidly expanding its plant, which deteriorated during the Japanese occupation. The output of this and neighbouring oilfields last year was 1,882,000 metric tons compared with 940,000 tons in 1939. A new township, complete with shops, a movie house, library, and fire station, is to be built in a jungle clearing to house the engineering and other technical staffs. Some 25 key men already have been flown to Borneo by British Overseas Airways and 30 more are due to arrive soon.
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Bibliographic details
Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22868, 11 February 1949, Page 6
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198SEARCH FOR OIL UNDER THE CHINA SEA Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22868, 11 February 1949, Page 6
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