Enterprise Still Has Hope

30 Years’ Fight for Permit to Seek Oil in NG

LATEST move by Enterprise of New Guinea Gold and Petroleum Development Co. in their war with Bureaucracy for a permit to search for oil in New Guinea, is the appointment, some weeks ago, of Mr. S. J. Paterson as geologist.

Mr. Paterson has had considerable experience in Papua with Austral asian Petroleum Company as field geologist. He has been with the CSIRO since 1951 making surveys in Queensland, NSW and WA.

Enterprise has been trying off and on since 1934 for a permit to search for oil in an area of New Guinea in the Upper and middle Sepik River area and, according to the map, stretching away north west and taking in the area near Maprik. The permit area sought covers 5,000 square miles.

In the early years of the com pany’s existence, this was officially an “uncontrolled” area and that fact was given as the reason why a permit was withheld. In recent years, the reason for withholding the permit was said to be lack of sufficient capital. The company has since increased its capital by war damage compensation payments and recent calls on shareholders and now has sufficient funds to finance an expedition of about six months’ duration. From there on, it is believed, no difficulty would be experienced in raising sufficient money to continue with the search.

Early driving force behind Enter prise was the late Frank Watkin, who was managing-director before the war but who lost his life when shot down over Cologne a few months before V-E Day. He appar ently believed the rumours that were current in the early 30’s that the Dutch had found oil in the upper Sepik area but had quietly sealed off the bores when they found (after a Dutch-Australian survey of the border in 1933) that the wells would be on the Aus tralian side of the border.

Enterprise is supposed to know the locality of those sealed bores but there is no indication that the present directors of the company have over-much faith in their existence. In 1951 Australian news papers made much of the story from a visitor to the Sepik area that oil seepages had been found locally.

All residents of the Sepik- Maprik-Aitape area know these oil seepages and they were often shown to Oil Search geologists when they were operating in the area before World War 11. But of them selves they apparently indicate very little. However, the story produced fresh interest in Enterprise at the time—although it did not pro duce for them a permit.

Enterprise is all set to go—when

ind if the Australian Government jives them the all-clear. And why he all-clear has been withheld so ong is one of the mysteries of the ige. The value of an oil discovery n New Guinea is self-evident; the Germans were interested in the jetroleum potential of the area enterprise proposes to survey as far >ack as 1912; no one else appears o desire to conduct a search in the ame area; and the company has ufficient funds to do the prelim nary six months’ work and antici jates no difficulty in raising a

million, if necessary, to carry on.

Why then does the Government prevent them? There appears to be nothing to lose in permitting them to go ahead —unless, of course, the United Nations desire that this part of the Sepik be reserved for native oil-search sometime in the year 2054. |I Mr. Phillip Hayman, of Madang, NG., was married at end of March to Miss Doris Coulton, of Sydney.