Oil Turned To Water

IN EARLY NOVEMBER 1958 after 20 years and £3O million worth of effort, the Australasian Petroleum Co. struck oil at Gulf of Papua, New Guinea. There was an immediate boom in Oil Search shares in Australia although that company owned only 10 per cent of the APC consortium. Joy was short-lived as within a few weeks Puri was producing water instead of oil and oil in Papua was never to flow in any quantity again. At the time, however, Puri stayed the hand of the major partners in the consortium who had been threatening to pull out of Papua.