Oil Prospects in the South
pp. 26-27 · Read in the full issue
Pacific
EVERY resident of the South Pacific— whether he lives in Australia, New Zealand or the Islands—who is now paying somewhere between 3/- and 4/per gallon for petrol, or who takes an in telligent interest in the troubles in the Middle Eastern oil areas or the politics of Indonesia asks himself frequently: Will we ever find oil in Australia or New Guinea? If we could find oil somewhere in the British portions of the Southern Hemisphere we feel that a lot of our troubles would be over.
The prospects of finding oil in Australia or New Guinea are discussed by Mr.
Harold Rabling, Managing Director of the Vacuum Oil Company in a book re cently published, Energy for a Greater Australia. Mr. Rabling is an American trained Australian oilman.
In his book he has not confined him self to rosy dreams of a local, so far un discovered oil-field, but surveys the whole of the problem of energy for industry and domestic requirements—coal, water-gen erated power, oil, synthetic petrol, etc. He does not present us with an over optimistic hope that we will discover a new oil field
and thenceforth be able to sit back and use it up. Rather, he urges the co-ordina tion and best use of all the fuels that are available to us so that these lands in the South Seas may develop without too great a reliance being put upon one type of energy.
But, if no oil field is discovered in these latitudes, indicates Mr. Rabling. it will not be for want of trying. The discovery of oil. he points out, is no matter of luck.
Tales of men who struck oil and became millionaires overnight make good reading, he said, but have little to do with the industry as it exists to-day. Exploration for oil is long, tedious and expensive. The company which discovered the Leduc field in Western Canada had been explored for 25 years and 134 dry holes had been drilled before it was finally a success. The recently developed oil deposits in Dutch New Guinea absorbed £20,000,000 before any substantial quantities of oil were shipped.
The sources of petroleum, its origin, the world’s main oil regions, the indications of the presence of oil and the prospects in this part of the world are all discussed in the book, which is published by the Tait Book Company, Melbourne, for 9/6.