Fuel shortage hardship

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33446, 30 January 1974, Page 18

Fuel shortage hardship

A Christchurch coin-; ipany director, Mr B. W. (Owen, has found cases of hardship in the Pacific Islands as a re'sult of the fuel crisis. ( Mr Owen returned last week from an expert sales; trip to Fiji. Western Samoa,: Rorotonga and Hawaii. Everywhere he found people suffering from the fuel shortage. some to the point of bankruptcy. Dozens of petrol station owners in wealthy Honolulu h I closed down for good : because they could no longer i get enough petrol to sell. i Mr Owen said that petrol i stations on the island were;! closed all day Sunday and/

• imany were closed all day 'Saturday. Each station had been allocated so much fuel per month ■(and proprietors had to ‘ration it out themselves. Most (did this by opening at 6 a.m. land closing at 7.30 a.m. them (opening again at 3.30 p.m. Vehicles began queueing at I 1 2 p.m. hoping to get the( (maximum allowance of $3l worth. The crisis had even far! more serious consequences in Western Samoa. American Samoa and Rarotonga, he said. The announcement that ( supplies had been cut by 20 per cent had prompted exces-i sive buying and now little ( remained. Not only had cars! been affected but power sup-' plies were also in jeopardy..

There had been talk of reducing power because of. • the shortage of diesel oil i required for generation. i This was worrying : islanders, who saw the con- . sequences in having refrigi eration supplies interrupted. ' In American Samoa Mr ■ Owen found that service ‘ stations had run out of petrol by 11a.m. daily. There was no formal rationing but 1 proprietors were limiting supplies to each customer. Mr Owen spoke of chaotic ! problems on air routes. He ( warned people to avoid flying ' the South Pacific where pas- j sengers could expect long de-' lays in flight departures and aircraft full. ‘ Mr Owen said he was glad 2 to get back to the orderliness ,of New Zealand. I