THE PETROLEUM BOOM.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 114, 17 May 1906, Page 3

THE PETROLEUM BOOM.

BEWARE STANDARD OIL COM-

PANY

Tho " Lyttelton Tinie.s" says: "The colony provides a good market lor four or five million gallons of refined oil annually, so that there is likely to be quite as large a local demand as the Taranaki enterprise will require to make it profitable. In 1904, the latest year tor which the figures are available, we imported 4,420,491 gallons of oil, valued at £140,842, mainly from the United States. The Standard Oil Company has a practical monopoly of the market, and if the local wells should prove at all valuable we shall doubtless have an opportunity of watching the peculiar methods of the trust in operation. The first move in cases of the kind is generally an offer to purchase, and it is at least significant that foreign buyers have already asked the'Taranaki Company to name a price for its property. The Standard Oil Company certainly would not relinquish the valuable New Zealand market to even a local rival Avithout a fight, and if the New Zealanders make up their minds to keep their wells, the consumers may shortly find foreign oil growing unaccountably cheaper. These things are wrapped up in the future, of course, but Taranaki ' boom ' promises to give rise to an interesting, not to say piquant, situation in the local oil business." OTHER OIL FIELDS. Favourable reports continue to come to hand concerning the New Plymouth oil wells, says the "Eltham Argus" of Monday last. We are pleased to read them. The oil boom is not going to begin and end in New Plymouth. There is oil in many parts of Taranaki, Inglewood being one of the favoured spots. Round about Eltham there are many indications of oil. It can be found in the Ngaire swamp. Possibly half of Taranaki may develop into oil fields. However, everyone should wish the greatest success to the New Plymouth oil pioneers. They sank a lot of money and persevered in spite of all obstacles. We wish that those enterprising, men who lost their money in oil-boring years ago were "in the swim now; we are afraid they are not.