OIL IN DOMINION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22753, 12 June 1937, Page 14

OIL IN DOMINION

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES GOVERNMENT PREPAREDNESS PROVISION IN MINING BILL MILFORD SOUND INVESTIGATION [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION'] DUNEDIN. Friday An announcement that his Mining Bill to be introduced during the coming session of Parliament would contain piovisions that would cover tho position in the event of tho discovery of oil on an appreciable scale in Now Zealand was made in an interview to-day by the Minister of Mines, the Hon. P. C. Webb. The Government was alive to tho possibility of finding a flow of oil in the Dominion, he said, and had had several conferences with overseas interests with respect to the general question of prospecting, but the prospects of large scale development were by no means definite. Boferring to the reported discovery of oil in the Milford Sound region the Minister said that within the next few months au officer of tho Department of Scientific and Industrial Research would visit the locality and report to the Government. In the event of the prospects being sufficiently encouraging, consideration would be given to the question of making a complete geological and geophysical survey.