Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-03
AN END TO SPECULATION.


The Past Year Practically Wound Up That
Branch of the Oil Business-Figures
Show the Variations During Twelve
Months.
If any petroleum producer or speculator
had any doubt at the beginning of the year
1890 respecting the merits or demerits OF
the shut-in movement so popular in 1SSS-S9,
he has months since relegated it to the
waste lumber gallery. The shut-in has been
a great success. 1t has been so tight that it
has sutfocated both producer and the specu-
lator who made his market for him, while
it has made the market an exceedingly COM
Portable one for the one great oil buyer.
Lima oil is no longer speculative commod-
ity and the stock of Pennsylvania crude is
steadily accumulating. During the year
Just closed the increase has been about 66
per cent, the year opening with a surplus
of little over 5000, 900 barrels and closing
with one of about 15,000, 900 barrels The
steady drop of prices would doubtless have
checked field work so as to have further re-
duced the amount in National Transit
storage had not the phenomenal Mcdonald
field been opened up, but when flowers
ranging in output from 1000 to9 900 barrels
even at 80 cents barrel The surplus,
so far as human prescience is a guide is not
likely ever to reach 30, 900, 900 barrels, as it
once did. for the controlling power is now
so firmly seated that no combination suffi-
GENTLY powerful to disturb it is ever likely
to be formed. Intrinsic value is not factor
under present circumstances.
The speculative market during the past
year can only be called one by courtesy. 1t
is true, few men have assembled from day
to day and split fractions, but many day
passed without sales and most ofthe business
has been done ex-Clearing House, that in
stitution having become purely ornamental
and somewhat expensive. In consequence
there is no record of business that is worth
anything and only occasional bids and
offers serve to keep alive the memory of an
exchange on which were recorded sales and
resales of 9S3, ,002, 200 barrels in 1888, which
was considered very dull and Improbable
year. In 1890 the sales amounted to about
one-sixteenth of that figure, and this year no
dealer pretends to know what they were, as
they were no longer considered worthy of
regular record.
The market opened on January ], 1891,
on 13e bid, and after fuctuating slightly for
somNweeks high water mark was reached
February 10, when S11sc was bid. Coma
then set in and nothing eventful occurred
until the morning of August s, when after
opening at 6S15c there was a sudden sub
sidence to SOC. but there were no wrecks
caused by the recession, simply because
nothing had been done. Then came the an
nouncement that the premium had
been abolished on lower country oil and
there was a sudden advance of about So per
cent on the closing tigutes of the sth of
August. Some irrepressible people threwup
their hats and tried to howl as Of yore, but
the sound died in their throats, for they
soon discovered that the improvement really
amounted to nothing. Spectators had
simply refused to longer bid on Oil, but they
took little fly on the fresh stuff let into the
tanks when the premium was Knocked off:
The gorgeous Exchange building has been
pervaded by ghostly air, but few people
still attend sessions from force of habit or to
over the glorie3 of the past. Un-
for oil spectators, the promise
of easy money this year, resulting from
sales OF breadstuffs to Europe, contains no
hope. Not single dealer spoken to pre-
dicted revival.