PETROLEUM 



Occurrence 



MINERAL OIL 



Eastern 

 India. 



Makum. 



Wells. 



Yield. 



Burma 



Irrawaddy 

 Valley. 



production of petroleum, may lose its resources by destruction of the 

 natural reservoirs. " The Moghal Kot oil-bearing beds form a very open 

 anticlinal fold, whose axis pitches to E.N.E., and if the dome possessed the 

 necessary plastic, impervious envelope, the oil rising up from below would 

 have become concentrated in the porous beds which form the saddle, but 

 for the fact that along this line the rocks are more easily eroded by surface 

 water, and the anticline thus forms the gorge of a river by which the rocks 

 have been opened to permit the waste of oil for an indefinite time " 

 (Holland). 



[Cf. Holland, Min. Oil from Suliman Hills ; also Oldham, Kept, on Oil Locality 

 near Moghal Kot, in Rec. Geol. Surv. 2nd., 1891, xxiv. pt. 2, 83-97 ; De La 

 Touche, Kept, on Oil Springs at Moghal Kot, in Rec. Geol. Surv. Ind., 1892, xxv., 

 pt. 4, 171-80; also Rept. Exper. Boring at Sukkur, 1895, xxviii., pt. 2, 56-8; 

 Progress of Petrol. Operat. in Baluchistan, Govt. Publicat. Simla, June 13, 1892.] 



Assam. In 1865 the springs in the Assam oil-fields were visited by 

 Medlicott, who stated that, though the discharge was small, they were 

 the most promising he had seen. In 1867 a Calcutta firm obtained per- 

 mission to prospect and struck a promising oil-spring at a depth of 118 feet 

 near Makum, but nothing more was done till 1883, and very little develop- 

 ment occurred in the following sixteen years. These oil-fields were first 

 systematically reported on by Mallet (Mem. Geol. Surv. Ind., 1876, xii., 

 356), and were again examined by Mr. R. A. Townsend, Superintendent 

 Petroleum Works, Baluchistan. According to Mallet, the oil-springs may 

 be classified for commercial or leasing purposes into the following districts 

 (1) those of the Tipam Hill, north of the Dihing ; (2) those of the range 

 between the Dihing and Disang ; (3) those of the Makum coal-field, south 

 of the Dihing between the Dirack and Tirap rivers ; (4) those to the east 

 of the Tirap. The chief locality is that of the Makum coal-field, the best 

 wells being at Digboi. In 1899 the Assam Oil Company was formed with 

 a nominal capital of 310,000 (Holland, Rev. Min. Prod. Ind., I.e. 75). 

 The result was that the output rose from 623,372 gallons in 1899 to 

 1,756,759 gallons in 1902; 2,585,920 gallons in 1904; and 2,733,110 

 gallons in 1905. . 



Holland observes that " the belt of tertiary rocks extending from the 

 north-eastern corner of Assam for about 180 miles south and west shows 

 frequent signs of oil, nearly always in association with coal and sometimes 

 associated with brine-springs and gas-jets. The series of earth-folds in 

 which this corner of Assam occurs stretches southwards to Cachar, where 

 oil-springs are also known, through the little-known Lushai hills into 

 Arakan, and in the same system of parallel folds occur the oil-fields of the 

 Arakan coast on one side of the Yoma, and those of the Irrawaddy valley 

 on the other." [Cf. Repts. of Assam Oil Coy., Ltd., 1900-3.] 



Burma. Holland furnishes the following brief account of the areas of 

 Burma that are actually worked at the present day. " The most pro- 

 ductive oil-fields of Burma are those on the eastern side of the Arakan 

 Yoma, in the Irrawaddy valley, forming a belt stretching from the Magwe 

 district, in which the well-known field of Yenangyaung occurs, through 

 Myingyan, in which Singu occurs, across the Irrawaddy into Pakokku, where 

 Yenangyat is situated. Oil is, however, known further south in Minbu, 

 Thayetmyo and Prome, and further north in the Chindwin valley, but 

 these areas have not so far been thoroughly prospected, and the great 

 development which has recently taken place has been the direct outcome 

 of work in the three fields, Yenangyaung, Yenangyat, and Singu." 



874 



