The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-04-02

since the Galician, Roumanian and Rus 1 the world with gasoline as well as all | other petroleum products.
 |! T noticed the other day that 12 big tank steamers had cleared on the same day the biggest days shipment ever made. And every available tank ship is in serv- ] ice The Standard Oil company is rush. 1 ing work on 30 of the largest tank steam CTS ever built
 1 "Why, just think. Then there are 40- 000 motor trucks to be fed, as we'll as | myriads of greedy aeroplanes. Every au- tomobile in Europe is doing double duty and little attention can be paid to econ ties are destroyed, too, in storage places by enemy aircraft and shells.
 Surely there's ample reason for the present shortage and for the present prices They are war time conditions, that is all. And they will end with the war. In fact, we are at the peak now
 prices will go no higher and may be ex- pected to come down any day.
 Incidentally, I have it on pretty good
 authority that oil producers, like men in
 other lines, have been quick to take ad-
 vantage of the situation, and to tempo
 rarily advance prices just because they
 could. In fact, I am told that in or
 der to uphold prices and for speculation
 purposes, very large proportion of the
 oil wells of this country are actually
 ''plugged"-they are not pumping. Nor
 are these wells controlled by Standard
 Oil" They are independent for the most part. Right now there are S00000 barrels of crude petroleum in the big reservoirs n fha of bal barrel" and speculators are paying that and more. There's war brides for you! CONDITION CAN'T LAST fOf course, that condition cannot last. In fact, there is evidence that it is about over. Producers have been taking the
 long prices of late at rate that will surely readjust matters.
 'But you say could not the producers
 keep prices up by a continuation of those tactics? The answer is that in normal
 peace times, just as soon as gasoline in this country approaches 20 cents per gall ion, Russian and Asiatic oils come in
 in flood. Oil, like water. soon finds it's
 level-economically as well as physically.
 Some will recall that just before the
 war broke out, people on the Pacific
 coast became alarmed at the soaring
 prices and feared they would continue.
 A company was financed to bring Asiatic gasoline overland immediately there after Pacific coast points got the cheap
 est gasoline they had had for years. In
 shcrt, just as soon as the price of gaso- line reaches a certain level it begins to flow back this way-and to stop compe- tition before it gets serious. our distillers cut prices. That was the real reason for the various price cuttings in the past; ! not the supposed war between the trust
 and independents. Only the war prevents
 that, now.
 There is an impression abroad that the supply will sometime run out. I can't see it that way.
 For example, just consider this: Whereas. formerly only 2 per cent of the crude oil was avilable for gasoline to- day, because of improved methods of dis tilling and improvements of carburetors and motors, 65 per cent of all crude oil is rendered suitable for engine consump- tion. And new wells by hundreds are being opened up every day, and better