Petrol price to be held in meantime

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33967, 7 October 1975, Page 1

Petrol price to be held in meantime

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, October 6. The Government would not increase the price of petrol until existing stocks were exhausted, the Minister of Energy Resources (Mr Freer) said today.

Speaking after today’s Cabinet meeting, Mr Freer said the Cabinet had considered a list of 32 oil conservation proposals from the Ministry of Energy Resources.

A sub-committee consisting of himself, the Minister of Electricity and Railways (Mr Bailey) and the Minister of Mines (Mr Colman) would examine the proposals and present a list of priorities to next Monday’s Cabinet meeting for a final decision. But Mr Freer said that the Cabinet had agreed today that the price would be held until existing stocks had been used. This was expected to take two to three months, but it depended on the rate of consumption. If people conserved fuel, the price rise could be delayed further, he said.

The Cabinet had also ■ rejected the idea of rationing petrol as being inappropriate. Mr Freer said that when the price was eventually increased, the new price would reflect increased costs. This .would involve the 10 per cent base increase, the increase in the value of the United States dollar, and increased oil company costs. It would be more than a 10 per cent rise — which would put the price at $l.lO a gallon — but would not be as high as the $1.30 a gallon mentioned in newspaper . reports, he said. Alternatives “You’ve got to face the fact that we are going to ' have to live in a higher price I structure for oil in the foreseeable future,” Mr Freer said. “We have to look at permanent measures.” Mr Freer said the “complex” alternatives put. to the Cabinet had covered the complete range of conservation I alternatives and had been aimed at reducing the total use of oil, not just the consumption of motor spirits. The Government was not interested in punitive measures. Carless days would not be acceptable over a long period or even as a semipermanent measure. Fare measures But, the Minister said, there could be “minor elements of compulsion” in one or two industrial areas. Car pooling, and ways of encouraging the use of public transport by holding or reducing the fares, would be studied by the special subcommittee. Mr Freer said nuclear energy had not been taken into account as a way of cutting oil consumption, because the Government did not intend to go ahead with nuclear power production, as it had said repeatedly. No target had been set on how much the oil consumption would need to be reduced, but savings this year

■had already totalled 658,000 tons, the equivalent of $59. million.

This saving had been ■achieved through voluntary | conservation and through' | encouraging industry to 'switch from the use of oil to coal or natural gas. 7 p.c. down This would be stepped up, along with widening the use of bottled L.P.G. (liquid petroleum gas). The country was using 7 per cent less fuel than at this time last year.