Increasing Oil Supply

From Borneo

NO further way from Australia than Perth is from Melbourne, the biggest oil producing unit in the British Commonwealth of Nations is being de veloped—namely the oil fields of Brunei and Sarawak, in British Borneo.

It will be remembered that the Jap anese over-ran these oilfields in 1942 and. when they were driven out in 1945, they set many of the wells afire.

By 1946, 300.000 tons of oil were ex ported. By 1947, the refinery at Lutong was again in operation and 1,185,000 tons of crude oil were exported in that year.

By the end of 1947, production was at the rate of 2\ millions tons per annum— three times the pre-war figure. This out put could be increased if more tankers could be supplied and more material made available for field equipment and worker’s houses. Enormous waste is still going on because equipment cannot be obtained to deal with the fires —seven enormous fires are still burning.

Mr. J. E. Brown, Shell Co. executive, reported these things when he returned lately to Melbourne. He said this field could be made of almost incalculable im portance to the nations of the Sterling group.

The manager of Seria field, in Brunei, employing about 4,670 Europeans and natives, is Mr. G. O. Higgins. Mr. and Mrs. Higgins were popular residents of Port Moresby in the middle 30’s, when Shell interests were engaged in the search for oil in Papua.

The death occurred in Tahiti early in June of Corvette Captain Robert Jeanpierre, Officer of the Legion of Honour, who was an old resident of the Colony. Captain Jeanpierre was a re lation of Admiral Du Petit Thours, who was prominently connected with the events in Tahiti, nearly 100 years ago, which led to the annexation of the group by France.