Indian Minerals January 1947

12) To consider and to report what further economic and administrative measures are necessary to deal with the problems of the industry of a notechnical character and in particular to report on the conservation of higgrade metallurgical and steam coal the problem of fragmentation of colliery holdings the opening of new fields the economics of the coal industry and the stabilisation of c [...] Again the closeness with which wells are spaced makes a great difference in the total yield of oil for the closer wells are spaced (within limits) the greater is the total yield of oil from the pool but the less the yield per well so that a proper balance has to be struck (and it differs from place to place) between the extra cost of closer drilling and the extra yield of total oil. [...] Actually there has to be a considerable lapse of time (and a great expenditure of money) after the first oil has been struck before the field is in a position to be developed and to send oil to a refinery designed and built to suit the quantity and quality of the oil in the field for in the meantime the approximate size and charateristics of the field have to be determined and all the necessar [...] However in the late war the shortage of lead and zinc consequent on the loss of the Bawdwin mines in Burma and the difficult sea communications led the Government of India to make an attempt to produce these metals in India. [...] One of his early difficulties was that in the absence of any records of the ancient mining he was uncertain where to start mining.* No ore was exposed and the only indications of the size of the deposits were the excavations of the ancients.