Evening star., 1941-08-28

necessary requirements OF gasoline,
heating oils or fuel oils.
Simply stated" he declared, "the
sole question, then, is this-the use
of what products should be mod
erately curtailed now to assure
enough of these products which We
must have this winter?
Gasoline Is Selected.
THE petroleum co-ordinator and
the Office of Price Administration
and Civilian Supply have acted to
curtail the use of gasoline now, both
in order to assure enough gasoline
for essential uses over the coming
months and to provide adequate
supplies of heating oils for our
houses and heavy fuels for the Navy
and defense and civilian industry.
For every barrel of gasoline which
need not be supplied, existing trans
portation facilities can provide a
barrel of needed fuel oil"
Mr.. Davies said that under normal
conditions there is a reserve supply
of tankers to bring to the East Coast
all of the petroleum products it
needs. Last summer, he recalled.
there were about 80 idle tankers tied
up in the Patuxent River about IS
miles from Washington.
These were available to swing
into the task in the fall of carrying
oil to heat homes and to operate in
dustry," he declared.
This summer there has been no
such reserve of idle tankers. That
reserve, and other tankers normally
engaged in year-round operations,
are now on defense assignments.
Demand Increased as Well.
Some the United States Navy
has taken; some are in the so-called
shuttle service; still others have
taken the place of sunken foreign
ships which formerly brought fuel
oils from South America 10 the East
Coast; still others now are carrying
oil@to our new. defense bases. On
top ofethis, tanker deficit two addi-
ttuaaI burdens fxve been added
The demand for heating oils and
heavy fuels has increased over last
year and the reserve stocks of these
products on this coast are less than
asteyea ''ssssssasess assssze sassss5ssessss..'
Mr.. Davies was particularly en-
phatic in denying reports that the
office of the petroleum co-ordinator
had not laid the facts before the
public" about the petroleum situa-
ton.
This charge" he said. quite OBJ
vlously will not stand examination
From the time the co-ordinator was
appointed to this day, his Office has
consistently and repeatedly given
warning that we must deal with a
shortage condition in petroleum. No
one informed or uninformed could
have missed these warnings"
Mr.. Davies, however. declared
that up to the week ending August
is there did not appear to be an
appreeiable falling off in gasoline
stocks. Gasoline continued to hold
its own in the face of the continued
warnings by the co-ordinator that
voluntary reduction was imperative
and that shortage was imminent "
he said. Il cannot blame people for
being puzzled by this apparent con-
tradiction. The average motorist
is no student of the petroleum sup
ply.
Drop Apparent August Is.
Therefore, as statements ap-
peared in the papers that gasoline
stocks were holding up, the layman
did not necessarily know that the
means by which further stocks were
to be taken to the coast were very
quickly diminishing. However. the
transfer Of tankers out of service
finally began to make itself felt,
and during the week ending August
16 the stock of gasoline On the East
Coast dropped by $4,000 barrels.
The same week this appeared, we
were able to round out our statis-
tlcal picture. To meet the insistent
demand for figures on the stock sit
uatlon, we issued a factual review
which announced the 1893 900 barrels
drop. In that review I stated: This
is the beginning of the sharp and
serious drop in supplies that we
have forecast
That review showed that TO-
476,000 barrels of gasoline were in
storage on the East Coast in the
week ending August 16. We pointed
out that from this figure would
have to be deducted 14,000 900 bar
rels of working stocks which could
not be classed as being readily avail