THE OIL INDUSTRY.

Colonist, Volume LIII, Issue 12956, 22 November 1910, Page 1

THE OIL INDUSTRY.

- The Caspian Sea region, in the Russian territory south of the-^Caucasus Mountains, has yielded petroleum and natural gas in greater or less quantities for thousands of years, though the wells which .really count in the yield of oil date- back, only a few do.oados. On the other Jiand, the -im-mense-output of this Baku field proicißaa to go on indefinitely. ■■-xi?ln -tha. United* States the immensesneoess of the oil pioneers in- Cal.fornia, Texas and Kansas within" the last few years justifies the- hop© that groa£ oil-rfields- nxay be discovered in many . other states hitherto out of the reckohingof aM experts. It would be rash .to attempt to say that almost any part "of the United States not yet tested thproughlj' can never prove rich in petroleum. . ?:'^ ; : .■- ; - ■ 'Mexico has enough, big oil wells to show that some; of -they very largest petroleum fields in the world ar© likely to be developed in that country. What has happened in Mexico may take pJace in many parts of South America., \ In the New World alone the: possibilities of oil industry run on into the distant future,. perhaps for centuries, on a. very large scale. In Asia the conditions are quite J as promising for long life for the oil business. Aside from the wonderful etajing'capacity of the Caspian Sea fields and the importance of the petroleum deposits already untilised in Burma, there is every reason to believe that an immensely valuably and extensive oil region exists in Persia. Already testsri and sxirveys made by experts indicate that there is a petroleum deposit at least 1000 miles long, stretching from the Turkish frontier, near the head of th© Persian Gulf, far away to the north-east, in Kurdistan. Persian oil ist on the market already in the region of the Persian Gulf, and everything points to' great ultimate production of petroleum in that part of Asia. • There remain entirely untested vast regions in Asia and Africa where oil enough for the wants of the world for centuries to come may be obtained. •Thie possibilities of Australia, New Zealand, and other islands of the largest size are little known. In fact, almostanything can happen in 95 per cent. ■of the area of the two largest continents in the way of discovering oil deposits. - For any one district or' for any company of less : than world-wide scope and grasp the oil business may be hazardous, but in .tbo. wider sense in which the world's chances of obtaining petroleum are considered, there is a fair prospect for finding oil enough to meet all urgent wants for centuries to coma.