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| The Big Rig at Information Centre, Roma |
Roma
is a place I really wanted to visit as I had recently come across several
interesting stories about it during my research on the Great Artesian Basin.
Roma is where the first natural gas was found in Australia.
The
town has an average annual rainfall of 600mm. During a drought in 1900 it was short
of water as the creek and a reservoir were inadequate. A bore was drilled to
1350 feet and water and gas gushed out but it took several years to know how to
separate them. The problem was solved by sinking another bore inside the
existing bore and driving it down to the gaseous strata. A gas plant was
completed in 1906 and when shops and hotels were first connected and lit up,
they became a public attraction. ‘It gives a perfectly white light, and most
brilliant as displayed by the block burners and mantles.’
Ten
days after connecting the first premises, the gas flow stopped. It was not
known if it had run out, an obstruction blocked it or if the casing had leaked
and the gas had found another way of escape. Experts were called in but the
bore was not restored.
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| Truck at The Big Rig |
Visitors
arrived in the town to see the site. Residents asked the government to run
special train excursions from Brisbane to Roma on the weekends for sightseers
but the government did not oblige.
A
hood was built, an iron structure, eight feet by six feet square, a big riveted
iron tank without a bottom. It was fitted
with a valve at the top and another at the side. The top valve was attached to
twenty feet of piping to act as a chimney.
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A
special edition of the local paper announced when the contractors were to
attempt to smother the flames. Hundreds of spectators took up positions close
to the bore, some sitting as close to the bore as the heat would allow. The
first attempt failed and they had to return the following day. The next day they
watched the hood, suspended between a 15m high gin-pole and the rebuilt
derrick, being lowered over the flames, which continued to dart out from
underneath the hood. Workmen and volunteers heaped earth around the bottom of
the hood forcing the flames upward. The valve on the side was gradually closed
and the flames appeared at the top of the twenty feet pipe.
‘A
great column of flame was now shooting out of the pipe already mentioned,
ascending with the air to a great height. The sight was a magnificent one, and
when the darkness descended the columns of flames lighted the tops of the buildings
in the town and threw a glow on the sky to the west similar to that from an
immense bush fire.’
With
the flames extinguished within the hood the iron cooled allowing a pipe to be
connected to the escape pipe at the side. The valve was partially opened,
reducing the pressure from the chimney, allowing some gas and water to escape.
The smell of kerosene permeated the air. The valve on the chimney, controlled
by wires, was gradually closed to many cheers from spectators. In the ensuing darkness,
they groped their way home or to the School of Arts for a celebration.
The
Roma Mineral & Oil Company publicised their finding of oil and the smell of
kerosene seemed to confirm it. Speculation about oil being found a bit deeper
increased demand and the price of their shares.
Condensate,
a crude petrol was found by the Roma Oil Corporation in 1927. It could be used
in motor vehicles straight from the well. A car was driven from Roma to Sydney
using this fuel but the well ceased to produce in 1931. Natural gas continued
to be found but no commercial quantities of oil. When it was finally proved
that gas was a significant resource it was piped to Brisbane in 1969 for
domestic use and to make fertiliser.
The Big Rig, adjoining the Tourist Information Centre in Roma tells
Roma’s oil and gas stories and has many old rigs and other machinery on
display. Unfortunately rain was forecast again tonight so I will miss the night
show.
Conventional
gas at Roma has run out. Conventional gas and CSG are both methane but
are made up of different percentages of other gases. The conventional gas at
Roma is extracted from sandstone and has possibly migrated there from a coal
seam, whereas CSG is extracted from the coal seams. Several companies have
licences to explore for CSG around Roma. Santos and Origin are producing CSG.
This afternoon I visited the Santos office where a local girl was
adamant that coal seam gas extraction would not affect the GAB. I was shown a
video about CSG and its extraction on a very large screen. I was told that an
impermeable strata between the basin and the coal protected it; the treated waste
water will be used for irrigation; the left over salts will be reinjected back
into the earth below the coal they have been extracted from; and that the water
management plan has not been finalised. I was shown a cross section of a capped
bore, two casings full of cement.
The gas Santos is producing at the moment is going to the domestic
market but their new LNG facility at Gladstone should be operational later in
the year. To boost their supplies to fulfil their contracts they have bought
gas from Origin Energy.
Meanwhile, the construction phase, is over for Santos as all their
facilities have been built. This phase is the greatest employer of people. Exploration
and maintenance continue. An application for more wells has been submitted.
Roma rental properties, which were as high as $1,500 a week during the
boom, are now more realistic. Many new houses, ‘investment properties’, have
been built in crowded subdivisions, some are boxes, which contrast with the lovely
old timber houses on ample blocks of land.
Although motel owners have noticed a downturn since August last year, I
am told plans for new motels are awaiting council approval. The crowded yards
of truck, ute and machinery hire businesses indicate that business is no longer
booming.
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| Roma Sale Yards |
Santos has a policy of not forcing its way onto a property if the owner
does not want them. Small block owners are impacted more by CSG than the large
stations which can be 50,000 acres. Sheep grazed on these vast stations in
earlier days but now most farms produce beef cattle.
Being a country girl I had to visit the Roma Sale Yards, Australia’s
biggest cattle selling complex. Unfortunately I missed the sales held every
Tuesday and Thursdays but I was allowed to take some photos of the yards.
My other tourist photo was a selfie, in front of the biggest bottle
tree in Roma. These hardy trees line the streets and are for sale in many
places.
References
The Brisbane Courier, 24 May 1906
Western Star and Roma Advertiser, Toowoomba, 16 June 1906
Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 28 October 1908
The Capricornian, Rockhampton, 26 December 1908
The Queenslander, Brisbane, 19 December 1908, Queensland Times, Ipswich
Herald and General Advertiser, 17 December 1908
Oil Patch Information Sheets from Big Rig
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