THE OIL SUPPLY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160736, 24 August 1920, Page 8

THE OIL SUPPLY.

WHAT OF THE FUTURE ? Foremost among the most useful and least abundant, if not, indeed., irre' placeablo. 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 op' timistic 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 CO 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, while America has contributed 61 per cent, of the oil that the world has used in all ilmse years, America has aireadv reached the point where she is consuming more oil than she can produce. The story of the petroleum industry in the United States extend.! back onlv 60 years. On August 28, 1869. oil was struck in the Drake well, near Titusville. in Norlh-AA estern Pennsylvania, and. when pumping began. the oil flowed in a tiny stream of 10. later onlv 16, barrels a day. Since then. 6.000.066 barrels were produced in 1870 , 26.000.000 in 1880, <n 000 000 in 1890. 63.000.000 in 1200, 209.000.000 in 1910. 366.000,000 in 1918. with the outnut last year perhaps 20 or 30 million barrels in excess of that record. The crest of that flood of oil must surely soon he reached. 6et America consumes 413 077.113 barrels! Peginning with four miles of iron pipe, laid down in Western Pennsylvania at the close of the Civil War, the pipeline system now embraces a huge network of buried pipes from four to eight inches in diameter, trunk lines and 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 those pipes with oil. Oil is no longer our light by nriedit. but the premier power source. There are more than 300 products of petroleum. With more than 6.600,000 pleasure automobiles operated in the United states alone, it is estimated that 120.000.00P gallons of lubricating oil are consumed. Moreover. a fleet cf half a million motor trucks travels up and down American streets, delivering every kind of enmmodit'-. from eggs to uianos. ar.d these powerful motors furnish n for 37.600.000 gallons of lubricating oil. Ar-1 so the demand for lubricants becomes stronger on the road, on the farm, and in the mill. Whence vill come tlm petroleum to meet the needs of the future? The river of oil representing the 1913 consumption drew from the ground, in America, more than one-twentieth of the quantity estimator! by offices of the United States Geological Survev as the contents of the inn recovered underground reserve, and it also took one-fifth of tho oil stored above ground. Forty per cent, of the availaldc oil supply has been used up in only 60 years! Outside of the United States, the great nil supplies of the future are centralised mainly in the Near East, South America aiid 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. There-, fore, it is practically certain that, as the oil resources of the United States and Roumania diminish, and the reserves of Mexico also yield under the pressure of rapidly increasing exploitation. the world will have to look for its oil supplies to those regions where inaccessibilities and lack of demand, due to the social and industrial backwardness of the peoples, have hitherto retarded exploration and production.