AUSTRALIAN OIL PROSPECTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20222, 7 October 1927, Page 10

AUSTRALIAN OIL PROSPECTS.

ALL EYES ON ROMA. FAVOURABLE SIGNS. EXPERTS SURE OF SUCCESS. (From Oca Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 30. Is Australia’s long search for elusive petroleum deposits about to meet with its first commercial success? That is the question which people all over the Commonwealth are asking, following promising signs of the presence of oil at Roma (Queensland). Efforts to find oil have extended over a score or more of years, and they have been extensively active since the war, during which it was emphasised that Australia would never be safe in another war so long as she was dependent on foreign countries for oil supplies. Various governmental methods were tried to encop - age prospectors. Despite all activities the search fob oil failed, un u.e ne:d itself, where the firs* are now glimmering, boring has gone back for 20 years, but mysterious interferences with the boring plant invariably damped the ardour, of the prospectors. Now the search there has reached such a stage that Professor B. Steele, of the Queensland University, has been able to say: “ The position now is that where the prospectors were formerly searching for oil in the hope that they would get it, they are now searching with the knowledge that they will get it.’’ The Minister of Mines in Queensland (Mr A. J, Jones) has been always one of the staunchest of believers that eventually oil would be foflhd on the Roma field —so confident was he that scoffers dubbed him “Optimistic Alf. ’’ He performed the opening ceremony of the new plant of the Roma Oil Corporation th'at is now showung sucK good results, and in a brief resume of its operations the other day he said : “ Not only the eyes of Australia, but the eyes of the world, are on Roma at present, expecting that this operation will have proved so successful that it will be of great benefit to Australia. Oa September 8 a quantity of gas showed in this particular bore, the pressure at the Bin pipe being from 251 bto 301 b. A week later the depth of the bore was increased /by drilling operations, and gas was brought in in greater quantities and under complete control, the regulated pressure being from 3501 b to 3761 b. On September 16 a quantity of oil, some pints, came through the pipe, and daily since then a few gallons, which Professor Steele and other authoritative scientists consider oil distillate have come through " Professor Steele declared that these developments had convinced him that oil was in the neighbourly d of Roma in payable quantities. Is it uny wonder 'hat Australians from one end of the country to the other are asking: Will Roma.be our first oilfield?. Meanwhile, the search for oil in Australia’s dependencies, Papue and the New Guinea mandated territory, continues. In these countries geologists, including three British experts, and Dr Walter Woolnougli, the Commonwealth’s oil adviser, are conducting an intensive _ survey, and this week two amphibian 'planes were despatched from Melbourne to assist them. They will be used to do photographic Jfvey work. They will, it is expected, greatly shorten the time involved in a geological survey, and lessen the task of the oil prospectors. It is claimed that the use of ’planes in the hunt for oil has never been made previously.