VITAL PETROL

Grey River Argus, 6 August 1937, Page 5

VITAL PETROL

Dominion Supplies PROVISION FOR EMERGENCY. INLAND STORAGE SUGGESTED. AUCKLAND, August 2. Concentrated within a few acres on the Auckland seafront are 7,000,000 gallons of petrol, enough to serve the province for two months in normal times. At Evans Bay, in Wellington, the installations are a little larger. There are also tank farms to serve Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill, and there are smaller groups of tanks at a few of the outlying ports. Great as is the volume of stored petrol for the Dominion’s normal requirements, it is a fact that the supply at the main centres could be obliterated in about a day or a night, and that the greater part of the Dominion’s transport service could be paralysed. Concentrated as they are, the tank farms offer an easy target for a hostile air raid, while a marauding cruiser which breached the outer defences might easily land a shell on such a very vulnerable mark. While the problem may not be one of urgency, the disturbed state of the world situation makes it necessary that some consideration should be given to the establishment of. petrol reserves in situations in both islands, less vulnerable to attack. .Not only must the Dominion have oil, for its civil transport services, but a substantial part of its defence scheme, aeroplanes and transport, will depend, on petrol being available. How vital a part petrol plays in the Dominion’s domestic economy was recently demonstrated in Auckland when the drivers of the petrol waggons went on strike. New Zealand depends on oversea sources of supply for the whole of its petrol, and in time of war an uninterrupted service could not be expected. In addition to the creation of very substantial reserves, in' safer localities, the situation would seem to call for a more active investigation of the Dominion’s own oil resources.. The attempts that have been made to exploit the oilfields of Taranaki and of Gisborne have so far not proved very successful. The petrol that can be extracted from the producing wells in Taranaki is of a high quality, and from purely the defence point of view it may be worth while the Government devoting some attention to this locality. . Again, in the neighbourhood of Riverton, in Southland, attempts have been made to extract oil from extensive deposits of shale. Here also private enterprise has not been successful in the proposition a commercial success. A further possible source of supply lies in the country’s considerable coal resources, from which it is possible to obtain liquid fuel by hydrogenation plants. The development of all these resources would entail not only the expenditure of considerable sums of money, but would also take time. It, i would seem that the best time to in- ; vestigate New Zealand’s potentialities to meet a wartime crisis is before that crisis arrives. It is possible that ' in giving consideration to the revised defence scheme the Government is taking heed of the situation.