THE OIL PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 44, 20 August 1913, Page 11

THE OIL PROBLEM

RESOURCES NOT UNLIMITED DEMAND OVERTAKING SUPPLY. NEED FOR FUEL ECONOMY. (By "Auto*.") No subject has attracted more attention during late years in the technical press and indeed in the general newspapers in Europe and America > than the growing problem of the world's fuel supplies and the danger, through the increasing consumption of coal and oil and an almost world-wide wastefulness in their use, of an untimely exhaustion of our chief source of heat and power. Even now the position of oil fuel, particularly of the lighter oil-spirits— the petrol of commerce — is so serious that, in view of the tremendous demands by the motor industry, feverish efforts are being made in England to find substitutes, or at least to eke out 'the supply by other fuels. It is a well-known iact that the price of motor spirit has pracitically doubled in the last few years, while the quality of the fuel has deteriorated. The supply is not increasing in anything like the proportion needed to meet iho increasing demand without <% further rise in prices. The use of oil fuel in its various forms is becoming more and more general. It is in future, as announced by the First Lord of the Admiralty, to be the standard fuel for the mighty armadas of the Imperial Navy, where some of the later battleships and battle-cruisers have from four to ten times the power of the vessels of only ten years ago. This msatts an enormous increase in the con* sumption of oil fuel, which cannot but be felt by the market. The mercantile marine of several nations is equipping itself with powerful oil engines, which, economical as they are, must yet consume large quantities of the precious fuel. Hundreds of thousands of motor cars, motor cycles, motor boats, and hundreds of aeroplanes, each of which consumes at least as much fuel per hour of flight as ten motor cars on the road, are all biting into the limited resources of our petrol supply, and the heavier oils are being eaten up by immense numbers of stationary engines in all parts of the. World. No wonder the position has become acute. All these motors— millions in the aggregate— even the very Navy itself, are dependent on a fuel which bitter experience is proving to be far fiom inexhaustible. THE POSITION TODAY. The world's output of petroleum in 1912 amounted to about 50,000,000 tons. The percentages of the total oil produced were : — 'United States, 63.99 per cent. ; Russia, 21.48 j Galicia, 3.87 ; Dutch East Indies, 3.37; Rumania, 2.97; India, 1.87; Mexico, 1.02; Japan, .59; Peru, .4; -Germany, .32; Canada, .1; and other sources, including New Zealand, .02. Professor Vivian B. Lewes, one of the greatest authorities on fuel, in his last Cantor lecture, before the Society of Arts, expressly showed that, through the development of motors in America, it was useless to rely on that quarter for a long continuance of cheap supplies. And yet last year out of a total importation of petroleum and products into England of 1£ million tons the United States sent 980,000 tons; the Dutch East Indies, 160,000 ; Rumania, 144,000 ; Russia, 120,* 000; and other countries, 96,000. Thus approximately 70 per cent, of the oil i came from America. How much longer can England expect to draw her oil fuel from this source? Nor, according to Professor Lewes, is there much hope of Russia, Galicia, and Rumania supplementing their supplies. It is noteworthy in this regard that prices of oil fuel have risen bo greatly tnatbothin California and in Austria it is being discarded as locomotive fuel, where a year or two ago its use was almost universal. "It is evident," said Profes- i sor Lewes, "that, even if the supply of oil continues to increase in practically the ratio shown by the last ten years, the demand must soon get ahead of the supply, and that owing to' the position of Great Britain it will be only by the very careful handling of the commercial side of the question that we shall be able to command a sufficiently large share of it for our requirements." DWINDLING YIELDS. The whole of the available evidence, in the opinion of Professor Lewes, points clearly to the supply of oil from existing fields being less in quantity. However great the output may be, it cam only last until the oil from any particular stratum has been exhausted. American light oilß were formerly obtained solely from high-gra.de paraffine crudes of Pennsylvania and Ohio. These are the most valuable petroleums in the world. Highest -grade Pennsylvania crude now actually bringe the same price as refined kerosene in bulk. But, unfortunately, Pennsylvania production ha-s fallen from 33,000,000 barrels in 1891 to about 9.000,000 barrels during 1912 Ohio production has decreased from 24,000.000 barrels in 1896 to less than 9,000,000 barrels last year, and Indiana, which m 1904 produced over 11,000,000 barrels, now shows a shrinkage from that maximum of nearly 90 per cent. The advance of prices has stimulated drilling, and to a- certain degree temporarily checked the decline, but the doom of this, the greatest and best oilfield the world has ever known, is already written. In Canada production haa fallen off one* third, and the only North American fields which are not showing decreases are in California, Oklahoma, and Mexico. Three-fifths of the total United States yield now comes from the two Western States, but the percentage ot marketable petrol is very smafll in these — and it is petrol which rules the oil situation to-day. Similarly the output of oil in Russia is decreasing— to such an extent as to increase the price 100 per cent, in the last two years. In any case, even where fields are increasing their output, the increase is nothing like sufficient to keep up with the enhanced consumption. The largest increase in the production of petrol in one year has never been more than 5 per cent., while the production of petrol power-driven vehicles will in, all probability represent an increase this I year of somewhere near 100 per cent. A GRAVE SITUATION. The gravity of the situation can thus be seen. Petrol constitutes an average of 20 per cenl. of the world's supply of crude oil. A quarter of a century ago it was practically a waste product ; today the demand for it is impoverishing the world's supply of oil. In order to supply the demand the stocks of crude oil held in the fields have been depleted and distilled, and even then the essential fuel for the motoK-car, the aero plane, the motor-boat, and other selfcontained prime movers is inferior today to what it was ten years ago. It hod then a specific gravity of .680, but now it is .700 and over. This means that a heavier and less volatile spirit is being used. La?t year nearly 80.000,000 gallons of petrol were imported intn tho Old Country. This year the quantity will probably exceed 100,000,000 gallons. The figures are prodigious, but the development of the motor ia such as as to make it highly probable that far more fuel will bo wanted next year. Where is it gojng to .pome from I No

wonder the great oil trusts are prospecting in every part of the world, at great cost, to try and strike new fields — seldom with much success. No wonder inventors and chemists are cudgelling their brain 3 and experimenting to devise new ways and means whereby motor engines may be made to uso kerosene instead of petrol ; or kerosene may be squeezed, as it were, by more distillation to yield a further percentage of petrol. No wonder efforts are being made to improve the carburetters and engines of motor-cars, and to reduce tho sizo and weight of the cars themselves, so that they may get along on less consumption of the essential fuel. It is something like the prodigal son reduced to the husks of the swine and trying to make the best of it. Professor Lewe3 is pessimistic. He doubts whether petrol itself will be able to supply the market for another ten years, if consumption increases at the present rate. The last century he describes as the coal era : this as the oil age — with much shorter prospect of life than a century. Probably, he says, there may come a "residues" era, in which the dregs of the coal and oil supply will be utilised, while the then existing generations will curse their forefathers for that profligate waste of the natural riches, which has marked the past, and is but little better to-day. Let us hope that the ingenuity of the human mind, sharpened by the progpect of dearth, will make provision in time, as it has rarely failed to do in the past. Perhaps even now there are signs of a more promising outlook, if only the problem may be tackled in its incipient Btages. That is the only hope.