WAR TO THE KNIFE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 315, 26 November 1910, Page 2

WAR TO THE KNIFE.

OIL RIVALS FIGHTING. The Standard Oil Company (capital sixty millions sterling,) and the Shell Transport and Trading Company (capital forty millions sterling) are engaged in a life and death struggle. In the petrol trade of Europe the proportion of the Shell business is 05 per cent, to the Standard's 35. But the Standard does perhaps 65 per cent, of the total kerosene - distributing business. It approached the Shell Company with a proposal that the latter should hand over 25 per cent. This was refused. The Shell and Royal Dutch Companies have now made themselves sole proprietors of the Sumatran oil. The attacks of the Trust are said to be manifested ir, various directions. It has lowered prices in the East India markets to a rate which gives, it is alleged, no return for the oil it is shipping. To counteract the development of the oilfields in Egypt it has greatly lowered the price of kerosene there. The Shell and Royal Dutch Companies, on the other hand, have disposed of 50,000 tons of petrol for the United States at prices 50 per cent, above those which the Standard is realising in Europe. They do not, therefore, fear competition. Meanwhile oil shares are falling rapidly on the Stock Exchange, and the price of petrol in England has dropped per gallon and may be expected to go very much lower.