NEW PETROL SCHEME

Chronicle (Levin), 15 October 1946, Page 7

NEW PETROL SCHEME

— Press Association

Vast Expenditure Planned

By Telegraph-

WELLINGTON, Oct. 14. Arrangements . are being made almost immediately io build up in New Zealand a new petrol distribution organisation with oeean terminal installations at the principal ports of the Dominion. This is to follow the establishment . of the oil company in which the New Zealand Government and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company will have all the shareholding. Completion to the stage where the company can undertake selling operations, is expected to take 18 months or two years. Mr. N. B. Fuller, manager of the continental section of the distributing department of the AngloIranian Oil Company, heads a mission of four experts who are likely to be in New Zealand some time laying the ground work for the new commercial organisation. No shares in the company will bc available for public subscription once it is established. The mission will make an investigational survey of N'ew Zeakud to determine sites for bulk tank installations and inland terminals. It is expected the cost of the system will run into £1,000,000. A staff is being engaged, particularly men with engineering experience, for whom the mission is looking in New Zealand. Premises will be secured without delay from which to launch operations. ''The Anglo-Iranian Oil 'Company, formerly known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company," said Mr. Fuller today, "is a 100 per cent. English company in which the United Kingdom Government acquired a majority of the shareholding in 1940. Other shareholders are the Burma Oil Company and British public. The company 's refineries at Abadan, Persia, have expanded considerably during the war and are now the largest in the. world, employing some 50,000 persons- and treating approximately 20,000,000 tons of erude oil a year by a vast still. The expanding production of the company is bringing its produets, which are so well known in Europe, to new "markets ainong which is New Zealand where the essentialiy English .character of the Anglo-Iranjah Oil Company will be partieularly appreciated. For this purpose a New Zealand Company will be formed in which it is hopcd the large majority of the staff will be New Zealanders. The New Zealand GoVeninieht, following preeedeiits existing' in the United Kingd.qm and Commonwealth of Australia, have deeidcd to take up the majority of the shareholding in this new company which will be manaered bv a hnnrd

of seven directors. The manag-ing-director and three othcrs will be nominated hy the Anglo-lran-ian Oil Company." The New Company will have at its disposal a fleet of taiikers as Jig as any other in the world. The mission now in New Zealand is plaiming its operations to provide complete distribution facilities. The minimum estimates of expenditure wliieh will be ineurred by the new company in which the New Zealand Government will have a _ holding of 51 per cent. before it starts operating, are £708,000, consisting of £208,000 for petrol pumps, £125,000 for buildings and land, £100,000 for terminal tanks, £24,000 for inland tanks, £26,400 for railcars, £40,000 for pipelines, £60,000 for road ' tank-trucks, £6000 for transfer pumps, £15.600 for vans and cars, and £43,000 for miscellaneous items.