2,000 Feet Down
p. 54 · Read in the full issue
ARC Continues .Deep-Drilling For Oil in Papua
From Our Own Correspondent
Port Moresby, June 27.
LATEST reports from Kariava, on the Vailala River, where Australasian Petroleum Co. has put down its first deep test oil well, show that the drill has reached a depth of 2,357 ft. At 2,372 ft., 151 in. casing was run in and cemented.
Now that all the spectacular work of creating the site out of the jungle and establishing a little settlement is over, the company’s oil experts have settled down to concentrate on drilling at this No. 1 well.
APC geologists are still carrying out surveys—only recently they finished an important survey patrol up the Upper Fly River and from the headwaters of the Vailala to the Tauri River. Several of the company’s geologists are now in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea.
There seems to be a general feeling among Papuan residents that oil will be struck, but, of course, it is all in the lap of the gods.