OIL

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 18 November 1927, Page 4

OIL

WHERE IT IS FOUND. INDICATIONS ON BEACHES AND RIVERS. DEVELOPMENT AT NEW PLYMOUTH. [ln this article, the second of a series dealing with the search for oil in payable quantities in Taranaki, our contributor has something informative to say about the achievements of the past and present in this pro- ' vince.] Oil! Benzine, petrol, kerosene, light lubricating, heavy lubricating, fuel oil and pitch—all from petroleum, S-ich as comes out of the bores of New Plymouth. Just heat the treaclylooking Lutter-consLstency stuff in a boiler, with a long pipe for cooling, and out oome the benzine and other constituents in the order named. Cut these off from New Zealand ancl where would we be? Just imagine it; if jou can think it out you will understand what drives some men to continued effort to win payable oil, cost or no cost, speculation or no speculation. Have oil, or go under! This is the national aspect to-day. The Empire of twenty-five per cent, of the land surface of the globe has two and a half per cent, of the known oilfields in its territories —about a tenth of what it should have. The fields outside held by the Empire’s nationals are likelv to go in time of stress. And two-fifths of New Zealand petroliferous ! What are its people going to do about it? Foster it, or retard it with restrictions and the cold shoulder? Not if they understand the position. A stranger arrives in Taranaki. He asks: “Where is this Taranaki oil they talk about?” “New Plymouth,” is the reply. He goes to New Plymouth and asks again. Ten to one the one asked will look askance and be unable to say. After two or three references he will be lucky if he finds anyone who can take him down to one of the places where the actual fluid is to be seen. (The T.A.A. might some day put a placard on Pioneer Road: “T.A.A. To intermittent oil-well Danger sign.) Three chains or so up, and at the end of a short- entrance road, is the site of the famous No. 3, output for a period 4800 gallons a month. Its oil brought to the company £5313. it flowed for four years without attention. The plant after these many years is out at elb-ows, but the well is at work, year in, year out. “Phizt, phizt, phizt,” up comes water, gas, and oil at a few seconds interval. .Sometimes it throws a few inches, sometimes twenty feet, level throw. At times it is risky to stay near it .or gas. Heavy weather piling up the seas is said to be the cause of heavy discharges. A flat plate caps the pipe an inch or two above the opening, hence the lateral discharge. At times fine papa sand is ejected. Ferns growing over twenty 7 feet away have been killed by the discharge of oil. Tanks cut out of the ground receive the discharge from the bore. There is oil, semi-solid liquid, wax caked in several places, altered by exposure to air and sun. they sav —altered somehow, anyway. Over the surface of a pool is spread a covering of bright yellow oil, looking for all the world like beeswax, and almost as solid. In a large iron tank is turgid greeny-black stuff, to be dug out with a stick, and with it lubricating oil that motorists pay a hot price for. In the underground tanks a liodge podge, some reddish, some yellowish,' mostly blackish, and water. Heat it, and out comes waterwhite petrol. THE BLENHEIM BORE.

Across Ngamotu Hoad from the spot are great tanks of imported petrol, sea borne for thousands of miles. And parent oil is under foot! A conundrum. Are the New Plymouth men beaten ? Not yet. Looking around he sees one, two, three, four derricks, all old and weatherbeaten. But one has a new “Jiat” on. That is the Blenheim well. From it has come oil by the half-million gallons.' It came up fifty bairels a day strong from the 23U0 feet “horizon.” ‘ Water came in. “Boro on,” said those in control, “3000, 4000, 5000, 5726 feet and stop,” the last a three-inch hole. Over a mile or piping, a mile of wire rope to jig up and clown with a “bit” at the end. After a turn at jigging, “spudding” in the vernacular, up with, a bit and down with, a bailer. The bailer is a length ot pipe with a flap valve at the cot tom. lip with the bailer and its tell-tale load, to be studied and searched like diamond pug. At the lowest depths the scrutiny makes clear a most valuable fact. The Alokau series', which contains much carbonaceous material such as forms coal and oil, has been entered. Alany thanks to the men who drove the Blenheim down. The Alokau strata, with coal outcrops, runs in a semi-circle from Alokau, through Waitewhena, Oliura, and Tangarakau to- Taliora, and dives under to New Plymouth. “Go on the land, young man,” says the statesman. •‘Go "up the strata,” says the Blenheim.

At the Blenheim bore a substantial attempt to commercialise production at the 2300 feet level is now on, hence the new “hat” to the derrick. The derrick is an elongated pyramid, generally closed in, high enough to readily ‘handle- the long pipes, bailer, and strings of tools at the top —a small room is generally built so that the top hamper can be readily handled. Good wishes for success in the _ attempt. Fishing jobs test the ingenuity of the most' skilled of drillers. For a good while- past- two or three barrels a day have been available from the Blenheim. At the above-mentioned level fifty barrels a day was the initial flow. By “shooting” in a pipe, say sixteen feetr long and six inches diameter or thereabouts, suitably filled with explosive, oil saml to the size of a room, fissured and slurried, might- b<? created, giving many passages for the flow of the precious fluid. After the explosion of the “so.ip” several times, the quantity of the initial production comes ,away. Hardstoft well, Yorkshire, England, for instance, rose from fifteen to fiftyfive barrels a day. (Alost of us didn’t know there was oil in England.) After applying the gentle persuader, superheated steam might be sent down. This to meet the drop in temperature and thickening of paraffin-base petroleum, which takes place when the extreme pressure is reduced on entering the bore. Then, maybe, a pump placed at the bottom might ease the work of pushing up against a down pressure of nearly half a mile column of fluid. It is common field practice to have several wells pumped from one engine. THE “HAWERA SERIES.”

Dropping a few feet down to the beach from the Blenheim well, over

(Continued at foot of next- column).

water-distributed volcanic sands, such as form the “Hawera series,” one can .stroll to- tlie root of the wharf. If he knows it when be sees it, possibly after hundreds of observations, and liearing in mind that a spoonful of oil will spread over an acre, he findis oil everywhere. A thin cake of top sand, oil Yellowish lines left by receding waves, oil. Quicksand, boots sinking a couple of inches, waterfilled imprints, scum on top, oil. Out in the waves a seepage, so marked in plans, oil. Tailing out from the end of the wharf, oil. From the far end of the breakwater, oil. Check it off with the Huatoki running through the town, carrying much motor-car oil and oil from its upper reaches: there they are, oil patches out to sea. Put a stick across the stream, up backs oil. Do tins on the streams well inland, back near Whangamomona, same tiling oil. PAYABLE OIL.