New York Paper - Petroleum Resources of China and Siberia (with Discussion)

For the purposes of this paper, the boundaries of China and Siberia will be taken as they stood about 1907. Except in the Caspian region, it is doubtful if all the oil ever produced in these countries would equal one day's flow of a good Texas well. Considering the vastness of the regions and the variety of strata, it seems strange that these two countries should have made so small a showing in the petroleum industry. No doubt the condition is caused partly by lack of prospecting and of modern methods of development; in larger measure, however, it is evidently because of unfavorable geological conditions over nearly all of east-central and northern Asia. China The known oil occurrences in China are very few. For many years, perhaps a barrel a day has been obtained by primitive methods from wells near the city of Yenchang in the northwestern province of Shensi. A like amount was obtained from wells bored for salt water in the vicinity of Kiating in southwestern Szechwan. The little oil was separated from salt water by allowing it to stand in jars. The salt wells yield also considerable natural gas, which is used to evaporate the salt and also for domestic purposes. There is evidence that wells were bored in this part of China before the third century. It is said that more than 1200 wells have been sunk in that district to depths of 1600 to 2000 ft. (485 to 610 m.) in connection with the salt industry. The scarcity of petroleum in China may be ascribed to three general geologic conditions: First, China contains practically no marine sediments of Mesozoic or Cenozoic age; second, the Paleozoic sediments are not for the most part of the types that generally contribute petroleum; third, the rocks of nearly all ages have been strongly folded, faulted, and more or less intruded by igneous rocks in all parts of China except certain areas in the west and northwest. The mountainous eastern peninsula of Shantung and the similar district of Liaotung in Manchuria to the northeast have the general