BIG OPERATIONS FORESHADOWED.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 12824, 14 October 1911, Page 5

BIG OPERATIONS FORESHADOWED.

(Per Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, October 13

Mr. G. S. Engel, representing the Shell Transport and Trading Company, of Great Britain, the British rival of the Standard Oil Trust for the oil supremacy of the world, is at present in Wellington in connection with the large interests held by his company in New Zealand oilfields.

In an interview, Mr. En gel said his company was prepared to spend a large sum of money in developing New Zealand oilfields, providing the conditions were satisfactory. He mentioned an amount over a million sterling. The great difficulty his company had to face, however, was that the mining laws of New Zealand had reference to reef mining, not"to the sinking for oil. If the Government thought the oil industry worth fostering, some alteration in the laws would be necessary before companies would venture much capital in the business. Mr. Engel intends, to approach the Government on the subject, of increasing to 10,000 acres the area that may be held. His company is interested in the Kotuku fields, which he proposes to visit, and has also large concessions in the North Island. They believed in the future of the oil industry in New Zealand, which, on the opening of the Panama Canal, would become of vast importance.