Oil To Remain In Pipeline

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30952, 7 January 1966, Page 9

Oil To Remain In Pipeline

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter —CopyriflhO LISBON, January 5. Thousands of tons of oil would stay locked in a pipeline until Rhodesia could enlist tankers to bring more supplies, a Portuguese company decided today.

The company owns the pipeline, which runs between the port of Beira, in Portuguese Mozambique, and Rhodesia’s

only oil refinery. At a meeting in Lisbon, the board of directors unanimously refused a Rhodesian request that an estimated 14,000 tons of crude oil. already lying in the pipe, should be pumped through immediately.

A company official said the decision was purely commercial and was not aimed at the Rhodesian regime. In Salisbury there was no official reaction to the company’s decision although Milan Smith was said to be studying the report. The oil is blocked in the pipeline because no new supplies for Rhodesia have come into the storage tanks at Beira to enable it to be forced through.

Experts have warned that if seawater is injected from the Beira end to fcrce the oil to Rhodesia it con'd damage the valuable pipeline by coercion.

No oil has been pumped through since December 31 The company's decision puts the onus on Mr Smith to find sources of oil to fill the tanks at Beira. Rhodesia, already hard hit by international trade sanctions, also faces a severe agricultural crisis caused by widespread drought. Nearly aL Rhodesia's southwest province of Matebeiand and parts of the midlands have become drought disaster areas.

Unless 200,000 catt'c can be ’ransported to better grazing a teas soon, many thousands

are likely to die. Serious crop failures are also forecast. Plans are being made to take the cattle by rail to better grazing areas