The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-01-18
RECORD PRICE
 ON GASOLINE
And It Is To Go Higher Yet, According To Oil
 Men.

The export price of gasoIene reach ed a record figure Friday when the Standard Oil company of New York announced an advance of one cent a gallon on stove grade gas0lene and two cents a gallon on other grades, and though these prices broke rec ords, there is likelihood of still fur ther advances. Stove grade gaso- 1ene is used in motor engines.
 The price advances were explained, unoficially, by a representative of the Standard Oil company by the increas- ed cost of crude oil and the twenty five per cent. increased demand for gasolene. Oil men say the demand is growing more rapidly than the pro duction One official of the Stand ard company, when asked if the re- tail price would reach thirty cents gallon replied, That's easy"
 Export quotations refer to case lots. Each case contains nine and half gallons Stove-grade for export ih ten-case lots was quoted until Friday at 26 1-2 cents a gallon. It is now 27 1-2 cents. In 5oq-case lots the price has advanced cent above Thursdays quoted price of 25.sO cents, and,. in 1,O0O-case lots, from 25.60 cents to s26.6O cents. In 10, ,O00-case lots, the price has advanced cent to 26.51 cents.
 Benzine, in 50O-case lots, was 24-55 cents. It is now 26.55 cents In 1O,- OO0-case lots. it was 24.26 cents. It is now 26.26 cents. In 11,OOo-case lots it has increased in price from 24.35 to 26.35 cents. <
 Naphtha, from 6S to 72 Baume. gravity, in 50O-case lots, has advanc- ed from 28.3O cents to 30. 30 cents a gallon, and in 1,000-case lots from 2s.1O to sO.1o cents. The prices giv-
 
 As a defense of these price advan- ces a representative of the Standard company cited the fact that in Febru- ary, 1915, Oklahoma crude oil could be bought for forty cents barrel, whereas now the price was $1.2o. IDu- fling last pear prices of crude petro- Ieum at the wells was uniformly low in all fields from January to August when the permanent decine in the Cushing fields in Oklahoma put a heavier strain on the oil supply from other parts of the country with a con- sequent advance in prices.
 From the low level of $1.35 a bar rel maintained from April to Au- gust IA, Pennsylvania grade, the mar ket standard, advanced steadily during the last third of the year, reaching $2 a barrel on November Is and $2.15 barrel on December IT.. Conditions indicate to- the government statisti- clans a rapid return to the $2.50 level before the advent of Cush- ing.
 Kansas and Oklahoma grade re- corded an even more rapid recovery. From its low level of forty cents a barrel, maintained from February IS I to August 2, this grade advanced to S1 20 a barrel, passing it's former high level of $1.O2 on December 13, and at tained the price quoted on the follow
 
 fairly steady throughout the year, a dve-dent cut affecting the heavy oils in the Valley fields on June ', and a corresponding advance affecting the same grade of oil on October 26. This was followed by a general advance of 2 J1-2 to 5 cents on all grades, except Ventura county and Santa Marta, eff fective November 30.
 Oil men said Friday there was very little drilling in any developed fields until late in the year. Then the ad- vanced market proved an incentive for new work A representative of the Standard Oil company said the de- mand for gaso1ene was so great at present that there was no chance to store it, and that the lack of a sup ply in storage would accelerate the up- ward trend of prices. l Il
 The stock of crude petroleum held by pipe line companies at the end or 1 915 amounted to approximately 195,T DOG, 900 barrels, inc1uH1ng oil retain ed in storage by certain companies that conducted pipeline business at the beginning of the year, but whose business was taken over and later conducted by exclusively pipeline 1 companies. 1
 This reserve is approximately <5O,- poo, 900 barrels greater than in T 914. l Tn 1915 about 24,oOO,Oo0 barrels of oil, brought to the surface that year, were placed in field storage by the pro- lucers. Refners say. unless there is | better adjustment between supply ind demand, this storage reserve will l lwind1e.
 A report from Pittsburgh said the AtIantic Refining company had ad- 1anced the retail price of gasolene one cent gallon to 22 cents, and that 1aphthaJ had been advnced two cents 70 20 cents a gallon.