BULK PETROL

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 62, 15 March 1933, Page 10

BULK PETROL

REDUCTION IN PRICE

TWOPENCE PER GALLON

COMPANIES' ACTION

At the conclusion of a further conference yesterday with representatives of the oil companies operating in New Zealand, the Minister of Finance (the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates) announced that the companies' had agreed to reduce the price of bulk petrol by 2d per gallon as from today.

It will be recalled that when the taxation proposals were before the House recently the Minister indicated that the question of the price of petrol was under consideration by the oil companies, with whom he was then in consultation. In announcing the arrangement made Mr. Coates expressed his appreciation of the companies' action.

The price of petrol, before the rise was Is lid as a general thing. The exchange amounted practically to Id, and the extra taxation to 3d, increasing the price by 4d, making it 2s 3d. At the instigation of the organised motorists' associations the Government removed Id in taxation, making the price 2s 2d. In overtures made to the oil companies the Government suggested that if it reduced the tax Id, the companies should carry another Id reduction themselves. Nothing further was made public until the announcement this morning.

In the meantime a new company, operating on what might be called the cooperative system under which shareholders are entitled to petrol at a reduced rate, landed the first shipment last week, and the first sales of Russian oil were made on Saturday at the price -of Is lOd to shareholders of the company and 2s to the public. The other companies have dropped their price 2d.

Mr. E. A. Batt, a director of the Associated Motorists' Petrol Company, declined to make any public statement at such short notice. '

Representatives of the other oil companies had nothing to say today, except that the position was fully put in the announcement made by Mr. Coates.