POVERTY BAY PETROLEUM COMPANY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4298, 30 December 1874, Page 3

POVERTY BAY PETROLEUM COMPANY.

♦ : (From the Standard, December 23.) From a party of gentlemen who visited the company's works on Saturday last we gather the following information. The whole of the works are now completed, and, massive as they are, they have been finished in such a manner as reflects great credit on the manager, Mr. W. W. Parsons, who superintended the work, and the builders who executed it. The derrick is 64ft. in height, and appears at a distance like "a lighthouse ; the walking beam is 27ft. long, and weighs about a ton and a half ; the sampson post, which supports it, is of timber, 20in. square at the butt, and lift, long, let into a balk of timber of the same width, and 30ft. long. The bull wheel, 6ft. diameter, has the rope, sin., ready coiled on it. The manager will commence boring immediately on reaching the bed-rock; the shaft which is being put down for that purpose, was, on Saturday last, 45ft. in depth, and, as the foundation is getting more solid every foot, there is great probability of the rock being reached this -week. A large quantity of oil is now welling up from the bottom of the shaft, and in the interval between the men leaving work on Saturday night and ten o'clock on Sunday morning about 3ft. of oil had accumulated, the shaft being oft. 6in. by 3ft., it may therefore be safely estimated that petroleum to the amount of eight or ten barrels per day is now being obtained, and this, moreover, without obtaining a flow ; it is simply forcing its way upwards through stiff blue clay, showing the enormous natural forces at work below which could cause such an exudation. The presence of payable oil may be said to be practically solved, as oil that will exude naturally to the extent of eight barrels per day, will, when the vein is reached and pumping power applied, produce twenty times that quantity, although the probabilities are, from the immense amount of gas which comes up with the oil, that it will be a "flowing well," and pumping will not be required. We have had a sample of crude oil kindly forwarded to us by Mr. Stubbs, which all interested can inspect at our office. These facts, backed up as they are by the sanguine expectations of the manager, have created great confidence in the springs, and will, doubtless, have the effect of putting the shares at a further premium.