OIL PROSPECTING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 132, 7 June 1938, Page 6

OIL PROSPECTING

soon as lhe legislation has been passed bringing the legal conditions into conformity with modern requirements, oil prospecting has taken on a new lease, of life. It. is interesting to learn from the Minister of Alines, the Hon. P. I’. Webb, that, not only have oil prospecting licences been granted over the area on the Poverty Bay district where drilling operations will commence next month, but that further licences have been granted covering other parts of New Zealand. There are now three concerns operating within New Zealand, each presumably with adequate resources to permit of a proper testing being made of their areas. The Dargaville area has not, up to now, attracted much attention. According to some geological opinion, Poverty Bay and Southland offer the best prospects of success, and it is interesting to learn that the Shell Company has been granted an area of 1000 square miles in the Napier district, over which to prospect, while the New Zealand Petroleum Company, which is allied with the Vacuum group, has received a licence, to prospect over an area of 900 square miles. The New Zealand Petroleum Company’s licence to prospect over two areas covering 6000 miles, and running from Wanganui northward, is of considerable local interest, and the public can now, with justification, conjure up the probable effects on Wanganui City if a commercially-paying oilfield is located, and oil-pipe lines are eventually leading down to a refinery in Wanganui.