OIL SYNDICATE LEASES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1786, 26 June 1913, Page 5

OIL SYNDICATE LEASES.

BRITISH GOVERNMENT EXPLAINS. By Telegraph—Prcsa Association—Copyright London, Juno 24. A White Paper gives details of an agreement made by the Crown agents in Trinidad with tho "Shell" and Hoyal Dutch Petroleum Syndicates regarding the rental by tho 'syndicate of properties for ,£IO,OOO a year, or the payment of a royalty of 2s. per ton for crude oil and Id. per 1000 ft. for gas. The Government retains the right to take 10 per cent, of tho crude oil, conceding a proportionate reduction in rent for the oil used. The "Daily Chronicle" complains that tho agreement confers a practical monopoly, the syndicate securing the Tiglit to prospect and select 100,000 acres of tho best oil-beariug properties, whilo other producers are virtually forced to sell their oil to the syndicate. The "Chronicle" proposes that the Government should lay a pipe line. Tho matter of tho Government's connection with certain large oil corporations, and the desirableness of its conserving within the Emnire oil tracts for the supply of fuel for the Navy, was recently mentioned in the IIous:- of Commons.