OIL IN MESOPOTAMIA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16542, 9 January 1928, Page 4

OIL IN MESOPOTAMIA

PLOW OF 10,000 TONS DAILY GUSHER MAY- POLLUTE BAGDAD, Dec. 3. The phenomenal strike of oil by the Turkish Petroleum Co. near Kirkuk lias created an atmosphere of tiie greatest excitement in this country. The prospects of the company and the result of its success in relation to the economic situation of the country is being freely discussed. The fact that the well was brought in at a depth of some 1500 ft., whereas the geologists oT the company planned to drill to a depth of 3000 ft., augurs that drilling in future may present a less difficult problem than the question of the transport of the oil. The flow is estimated at,10,000 lons daily, and unless .it is controlled shortly there is a grave feat that the waters of the Tigris and Diala rivers may' become polluted. The concession'of the Turkish Petroleum Co. covers the whole of the villuyets of Mosul and Bagdad with the exception of the transferred territories. According to the company’s geologists, there are three important oil lines in the concession.! The largest is the north-eastern, which begins at Hammam Ali, takes a south-easterly direction through Kirkuk, which is 140 miles north of Bagdad, continues past Tuz Kharmati, and ends near Kind-i-Bhrin. The second line begins

;it Khaiyara, 45. miles south of Mosul, on the Tigris, and takes a southeasterly direction to Kifri and Jcbcj Ouiki ‘imam. The third line runs from El Hadr, 60 miles south-west of Mosul, then along the Tigris to the Pet Ilah defile, and continues in a south-easterly direction to Handali, about 70 miles from Bagdad. In accordance with the terms of the concession, the company selected 24 rectangular plots each of eight square miles for their drilling operations, such plots being chosen as to eventually prove the capacity of the threo oil lines. Drilling operations were commenced in April last, and in less than eight months oil has been struck in enormous quantities near Kirkuk at a depth of some 1500 ft. J,t is understood that the well on the plot near Tuz Kharmati is so far at a depth of only 800 ft., but should oil be struck at a similar depth as experienced at Kirkuk this will “have the result of proving the presence of oil on a considerable portion of what Herr Holier, the German geologist, describes as the longest oil line in tile world.