The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-17
The Big Standard Company to
Begin Business With Forty
Tank.CarS.
LOCAL FIRMS WANT THE FUEL.
The Giant Corporation Said to Control
the Refinery to Be Built
at Puente.

There may be war in the fuel oil trade in
San Francisco very shortly. For some
time past the business has been practically
controlled by the Union Oil Company and
the Pacific Coast Oil Company. Now the
Standard Oil Company has ordered forty
tankcars from the East and will prepare to
enter into competition with the local firms.
1t has long been matter of rumor that
the Standard Oil Company intended NOV
ing upon the California oil wells. This
rumor now seems to have taken definite
form.
The great corporation has arranged for
the erection of two enormous tanks in Los
Angeles. These tanks will be sufficiently
capacious to handle all the surplus product
OF the present wells. With its forty tank
cars it will then be in position to deliver
the petroleum at a minimum figure.
The Pacific Coast Oil Company is not
idle. 1t will soon have in readiness tank
steamer to bring the petroleum here by
water from Los Angeles. The Union OIL
Company, which is to take portion of
the petroleum so transported, has pur-
chased twenty-five or thirty acres of land
across the bay on which they are erecting
large tanks for the reception of the fluid.
Originally it was intended to pipe the
petroleum from Los Angeles to the coast.
This plan has been abandoned, at least for
the present. The petroleum is OF such q
low specific gravity that it is almost as
thick as molasses. 1t was thought that
the expense OF piping the petroleum, to-
gether with the interest on the money in
vested in the pipe line, would SO nearly
approach the cost of hauling it by rail
that the latter means would be made use
of.
The prospect of an unlimited supply of
fuel oil at low figures, has stimulated the
demand for it materially. The Pacific
Rolling mills have contracted for tank of
10000 gallons capacity. Other large manu-
featuring establishments are said to be pre-
pairing to use the Los Angeles oil. The Los
Angeles Oil Exchange will soon erect a
tank with capacity of 80, 900 gallons here.
A committee from the exchange has been
actively urging the advantages of the Los
Angeles fluid as fuel and have met with
encouraging success.
Another matter of interest to oil men is
the construction of a refinery at Puente.
There is no doubt now of the fact that the
refinery is to be built The oil from these
wells, though valuable as a fuel, is of a
much higher grade than the Los Angeles
product. 1t will produce a fine quality of
Illuminating oil.
Standard Oil Company is to control this
refinery. A large stakeholder of the COM
pany owning the wells, declared a few
months ago that this was not so. He then
said that the company was under contract
10 supply several hundred barrels of pc
troleum each day as fuel to large sugar
beet factory, and that this contract would
hold for two years longer and could not be
broken.
1t would seem, however. that the
Standard Oil Company must have gotten
around the contract somehow. The step
would seem, in fact, to be largely matter
of necessity. The petroleum wells of Ohio
and Pennsylvania are failing in their sup
ply, and the Standard Oil Company could
not, it is said, afford to let these new wells
slip out of their control.
They have allowed the other companies
to handle the fuel oil without competing.
The handling of illuminating oil would be
a different matter, though. Should the
Eastern wells continue to fail it can readily
be seen that the Importance of the Cali
fornia product would be greatly increased
to the mammoth monopoly.