BENZINE PRICES DOWN

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 171, 21 July 1924, Page 5

BENZINE PRICES DOWN

MOVEMENT IN U.S.A. "~ SMALL COMPANIES RUINED. NEW YORK, July 20. The continued reductions throughout the United States in the price of petrol reached an unusual stage when tlie Standard Oil Company announced a one cent drop in the Eastern Metropolitan district. This brought the price in New York to 1!) cents a gallon wholesale. In tlie Western, Great Lakes and mid-Continental sections of the United States the price has reached 12 cents a gallon and even lower. The causes attributed are over-pro-duction by small independent companies who are engaged in an unprecedented number of new drillings, and the cold and rainy spring which has seriously curtailed motoring and agricultural tractor operations. The independent companies have been forced into virtual bankruptcy and are, therefore, . unloading their product for any price, they can obtain. Tho benefit of the reduced rates cannot be extended abroad because the independent companies are badly disorganised and lack tankers and other exporting facilities.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.)