TARANAKI PETROLEUM.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12664, 18 January 1912, Page 5

TARANAKI PETROLEUM.

OUTPUT TO GO UP! Operations on the Taranaki oilfields within fche next year oi| tWoNpromiße to be dn a- -very I4rge and] important scale. . "Thte fields are going to, be worked thoroughly/ said Mr H. J. Brown, chairman of the *British Empires Oil Fields, Ltd., purchaser of the Taranaki Petroleum Company's interests, (to a jST.Z. Herald reporter. Mr Brown; who has had a long and varied experience m oil -fields m all parts of the world, said that Taranaki had not been worked properly yet. The new' company's fijrstt action would be to send Horn* for a- geologist, whose business it Home ior a geologist, whose business it intending exploratory work on the fields. ♦'Then," said Mr Brown, "we are going tohsink wells, down 5000 ft. "We don't mind what oil -we, .strike on the way doiirn; we are going steadily down, perhaps through three or four rises. ' "iWhen we have the true horizon," Mr Brown comtinued, "we will proceed to draw oil from three or four rises, and more than that, we will take care to shut off the water as we go. Sd for the greatest depth lias only been ' 3050 ft, and oil came up without any pumping help afc all. For 150 barrels a week to have been secured for about two years under those conditions is unique In the history of; oil work. That oil is tho richest m paraffin m the world; the percentage is 17^ per cent., and the next beat is 10 per cent." ■JEho new company also proposes to put •down half-a-dozen bores to find out ex- . actly where to put the weljs. Jbistead of-11-inch bores, they will sink 26-inch ' linftes \ one unit refinery will* also be ■ eSd at Tcost of £l£<)0O 0r^314,000 antf with these arrangements it is hoped to, "make a profit of £30,000 a. year, m'tetead of 150 barrels a week, 150 barrels a, day is the anticipated i output. Ihe company, said Mr Brown, had a workIng capital of £275,000, and had lagreed to purchase ,the fields for £105,000.