OIL AND PETROL FROM SHALE

Southland Times, Issue 23852, 24 June 1939, Page 6

OIL AND PETROL FROM SHALE

Value Of Southland

Fields

“COULD SUPPLY NEEDS OF N.Z. FOR MANY YEARS

A claim that the oil content of the shalefields of Orepuki and Waikaia could sunoly the petrol and oil needs of New Zealand for many years was made by Mr R. Coghill, director of Amalgamated Chemical Industries, yesterday when outlining the potentialities of the fields to The Southland Times. “The shalefields of Southland cover a substantial area,” said Mr Coghill. He had recently pegged out more than 1000 acres at Orepuki and 200 acres at Waikaia, and the preliminary survey had given indications of what might be the richest oil shalefields in the southern hemisphere, he said. For more than a year his laboratory had been producing petroleum oils from Southland shale, and yields in excess of 40 and 60 gallons of crude oil to the ton of shale had been obtained. “It is known that in a small corner of this immense field, where 1,000,000 tons of shale are shown, not less than 40,000,000 gallons of oil are awaiting extraction. The oil content in the total area marked off must reach staggering proportions,” declared Mr Coghill. “The field could supply the needs of New Zealand for many years in petrol, oil, kerosene and paraffin wax,” he said. “In that case there should not be need to import one gallon of oil to New Zealand. Southland shale can supply the lot, and some day I believe it will. Thus will be saved to New Zealand the millions of pounds which goes overseas each year in the purchase of oil supplies.” I About 40 years ago when one part of the Orepuki field was worked, petrol was practically unknown to the general public. There Wereuio motor-vehicles to be • supplied, and shale oil and ammonia (a shale by-product) were wasted. An authority has stated that ammonia in the form of sulphate of ammonia, a valuable fertilizer, could be produced in sufficient quantities from Southland shale to make imports unnecessary. At present a new form of continuous self-heating retort for shale oil extraction is being investigated in Invercargill. This retort gives a constant flow of oil with a minimum of attention as long as shale is fed to the receiver. “The efficiency in oil extraction is more than 90 per cent.,” said Mr Coghill. “This is a wonderful improvement over the old-fashioned retort which required much attention and much labour and fuel, and had an efficiency of only 50 per cent. This means that for every gallon of oil secured by the old method almost two from the same quantity of shale can be got. Modem cracking processes convert the biggest part of this to petrol. The project is a sound one and is definitely economic.”