THE OIL SUPPLY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2031, 18 August 1920, Page 2

THE OIL SUPPLY.

WHAT OF THE FUTURE? Foremost among the most useful and least abundant, if not, indeed, irreplaceable, commodities essential to the future prosperity of the British nation, and others, too, stands mineral oil, or petroleum. It is interesting to consider the source—or, at least, the chief source—of the world's oil, and the optimistic American or the conservative Britisher may well ask himself where his children and children's children will get the oil that they may need in ever-increasing amounts.

For 00 years, except in 1898 ,to 1901, when Russia reached the peak of its past petroleum production, the United States has led the rest of the world with 'its steadily increasing flow of oil. But, j while America has contributed 01 per cent, of the oil that the world has used in all these years, America has already J reached the point where she is consuming more oil than she can produce. ,1110 story of the petroleum industry in the United States extends back only 00 years. On August 28, 1859, oil was struck in the Drake well, near Titusville, in North-Western Pennsylvania, and, when pumping began, the oil flowed in a tiny stream of 40, and later only 15, barrels a day. Since then, 5,000,000 barrels were produced in 1870, 26,000,000 in 18S0, -45,000,000 in 1.890, 63,000,000 in 1900, 209,000,000 in 19.10, 356,000,000 in 1918, with the output last year perhaps 20 or 30 million barrels in excess of that record. The crest of that flood of oil must surely soon be reached. Yet America consumes 413,077,113 barrels! Beginning with four miles of iron pipe, laid down in Western Pennsylvania at the close of the Civil War, the pipe-line system now embraces a huge network of buried pipes from four to eight inches in diameter, trunk lines ami laterals, aggregating nearly 30,000 miles. Along these hidden transportation lines there are pumping stations every 40 miles or so. Over 200,000 wells in America and Mexico supply these pipes with oil. Oil is. no longer our light by night, but the premier power source. There are more than 300 products of petroleum. With more than 6 000,000 pleasure automobiles operated in the United States alone, it is estimated that 120,000,000 gallons of lubricating oil are consumed. Moreover, a fleet of half a million motor trucks travels up and down American streets, delivering every kind of commodity, from eggs to pianos, and these powerful motors furnish a market for 37,500,000 gallons of lubricating oil. And so the demand for lubricants be-

comes stronger on the road, on the far and in the mill. Whence will come t

petroleum to meet the needs of the | future? The river of oil representing i the 1918 consumption drew from the | ; ground, in America, moro than one- i !twentieth of the quantity estimated by officers of the United States Geological! I Survey as the content of the unreeovcred underground reserve, and it also took] j nearly one-fifth of the oil stored above | [ground. Forty per cent, of the avail-1 able oil supply has been used up in only ; jfiO years! Outside of the United States, I the great oil supplies of the future are | centralised mainly in the Near East, South America and Mexico. According to reports, there may be great reserves of oil in Africa and the Far East. In general, the regions developed first and drawn on most heavily are, of course, likely to be soonest exhausted. Therefore, it is practically certain that, as the

oil resources of the United States and | Rumania diminish, awl tho reserves of i Mexico also yield under the pressure of j rapidly increasing exploitation, the world will have to look for its oil supplies to those regions where inaccessibilities and lack of demand, doe to the social and industrial backwardness of the peoples, have hitherto retarded exploration and production.