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Discovery of Natural Gas
The first natural gas wells in Chiba prefecture were sunk at Otaki Town. Several sources refer to the discovery of natural gas in the area. According to one source, it was discovered in 1596, six years after Honda Heihachiro Tadakatsu was appointed lord of Otaki Castle. Another source has it that the discovery was made in the mid 19th century. Yet another source places it somewhat later, between 1865 and 1872, in the years marking the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and the beginning of the Meiji era. None of these sources is definitive and the historical background remains unclear.
According to the actual historical records, the digging of a water well for Yamazakiya Ota Uhachiro (1843-95), the owner of a soy sauce brewery in Sakahana, Otaki Town, led to the discovery of natural gas. In May 1891, when he had the well dug on his premises, no fresh water was found, and further digging obtained only bubbly brown salt water. The well was dug using the Kazusa-bori method and it was costly. In his distress at the failure to find fresh water, he threw a cigarette stub into the bubbly water. Low and behold, the dirty bubbly water burst into bluish white flames.
Extending the Uses of Natural Gas
It is thought that this became the first natural gas well in Chiba and the first well in Japan for natural gas dissolved in water. Yamazakiya Ota Uhachiro was a keen user of natural gas. Years later, his son, Inotaro, had the well engraved on a copper plaque entitled "Unrivalled natural hydrogen gas", which today is a cherished heirloom of his descendents who still live in Otaki Town.
This well continued to spout gas until the Great Kanto Earthquake struck in 1923. It prompted other families in the area to dig gas wells for their own household use. Also in the 1890s, when Nishio Hatsuzo of Konya, Otaki Town, dug a water well to a depth of 182 meters, natural gas spouted from brown salt water. Although lacking scientific knowledge, the family contrived ways of using the gas for heating and lighting.
In those days, in the area, water wells were dug using traditional the Kazusa-bori method and the work was paid for not in cash but with bales of rice.
In Otaki and the surrounding area, families began digging wells for their own use in the early Taisho era and the practice became widespread in the Showa era. By 1930 there were 40 or 50 of these wells in use.
Natural gas was piped up via a simple separator for heating and lighting homes. Gas was also used in agriculture for drying silk cocoons and to power mills for rice and wheat. Use of natural gas from household wells peaked in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
In 1931, Otaki Natural Gas Co., Ltd., the predecessor of KNG, was established and started supplying natural gas to distributors of city gas. The new company worked hard to ensure the safety of gas extraction, transport and supply.
The Kazusa-bori Drilling Method
This is a traditional well drilling method used in the Kazusa region (currently Kimitsu City in Chiba Prefecture) in the Edo era. In 1893, this method was used for the first time to drill an oil well in Niigata Prefecture in the Northern part of Japan. Over the years, the method has been improved, and used for drilling many oil well and gas wells. However, since the method relied on manual labor and was very time consuming, it was gradually taken over by machinery, and has been disappeared after the age of Showa. The Kazusa-bori method is as follows: A bamboo rod called "hane-dake" is attached to a bit used to drill rocks. By manually moving this rod up and down, a hole can be drilled. Once the well drills deeper, the "hane-dake" bamboo rod gets longer and heavier, and so it is attached to a large wheel called the "hane-guruma" situated above ground, or a bamboo mechanism called the "hane-gi" which reduces the weight by the flexibility of bamboo.
The Kazusa-bori method is the background of Otaki Natural Gas Co., Ltd. (current Kanto Natural Gas Development Co., Ltd.) which was established in 1931 and continued gas well drilling until 1955. Today, in Japan, there are volunteer organizations that conduct technical training of the Kazusa-bori drilling method, and are providing knowledge and support to promoting this technique in developing regions of Southeast Asia and Africa.
