Oil Plant To Save Australian Dollars

Northern Advocate, 24 February 1940, Page 8

Oil Plant To Save Australian Dollars

SYDNEY, February 23. The erection in Sydney of an ; oil refinery capable of dealing with 21,C00,000 gallons of crude oil a year is planned by the Signal Oil and Gas Co., of Los Angeles, who claim their operations will save the Commonwealth the equivalent of £1,000,000 a year in dollar exchange. Negotiations are proceeding with the Government by Mr Allen T. Chase, vice-president of the Chase Securities Co., of Los Angeles. Half the capital needed for the venture will be American and the other half Australian. The majority of the employees will be Australians. Drain on Sterling. A message from Canberra says efforts to secure supplies of petrol frcm sterling sources sufficient for Australia’s war and civil needs has failed. The British Government has advised the Commonwealth to obtain its supplies from the Netherlands East Indies in order to economise in tanker space. Australia had suggested securing .petrel from Iran and paying for it with sterling of which tho Commonwealth has strong reserves, but Britain replied that dollars would have to be found in London for the sterling which Australia sent to Iran, and that there would be no saving in dollars, -as the Empire dollar fund' would have to make the amount good,