GIANT OIL TANKER ARRIVES

Hokitika Guardian, 4 February 1930, Page 7

GIANT OIL TANKER ARRIVES

TEXAS COMPANY’S ENTRY INTO BULK PETROL MARKER.

An interesting visitor to New Zealand ports is the Texas Cbmpally’s huge Diesel Tanker “Australia,” the largest Diesel tanker afloat, and by far the biggest vessel of its kind to visit these waters. Her over all length is 530 feet, beam 70 feet, with a draft of 27 feet. The gross tonnage is 11,628 tons and she has a capacity ol 145,000 barrels of refined petroleum products, a dead weight of 18,800 tons, or sufficient to fill over 1,000 railway tank cars.

The “Australia” is one unit of the Texas Company’s big fleet of 27 ocean going ships. She will he employed in supplying the Company’s bulk installations in Australia and New Zealand. Her arrival in this Dominion marks the Texas Company’s entry in real earnest, into this market in the bulk supply of motor spirit.

WORLD’S LARGEST INDEPENDENT Oil, COMPANY - .

Tlie Texas Corporation of U.S.A. is the largest independent single oil company in the world, with a capital in excess of £100,000,000. The recent purchase of the California Oil Corporation for £30,000,000 made it possible to open up profitable relationships with Australia, New Zealand and the Far East, and the Company immediately put in hand preparations for bulk installations in these countries. The Australian organisation has recently been completed and lias now absorbed, in a very short space of time, the huge total of 6;000,000 gallons of motor spirit as well as motor oil. The New Zealand installations have also been most thorough and complete. The main terminals for bulk spirit are at Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton and with miniatures of these at principal provincial centres. A large sum has already been invested in New Zealand, including substantial purchases of British materials.

PUMPS MADE IN NEW ZEALAND.

It is interesting and pleasurable to note that out of the hundreds of Texaco pumps spread over every city, town, village and hamlet throughout the length and breadth of the country, practically all were made in New Zealand on a design invented by a New Zealander. Thus, the Texas Company, in addition to its large personnel of New Zealand employees, lias fostered a new Dominion industry. A NEW TOUCH IN INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISE. A visit to any of the terminals of the Company in New Zealand reveals a standardised, scrupulous neatness which distinguishes the Texaco plants anywhere in the 46 countries in the World in which the'Company operates. The details of the plant are immediately apparent through the wire fence which replaces the usual unsightly iron one. Beautiful flower bods and lawns will eventually add a pleasant aspect to all the Texas Company’s plants in New Zealand—quite u' new touch in industrial enterprise. The Company’s officials state that they aim to make their terminals something to be proud of, and for that reason are glad to have people see them and approve them in passing by. The tanks at the terminals are of the latest gas-proof type and will bn painted with aluminium paint, which is not only very pleasing in appearance, but is best for deflecting the sun’s rays. This helps considerably to prevent loss of spirit through evaporation.

FURTHER ACTIVITIES OF THE TEXAS COMPANY.

The Texas Company is the only company which sells its products in every State in America. It has 17 refineries and 2,500 bulk stations throughout the United States, but these are by no moans the sum total of its ramifications. The Company owns no less than seven sawmills and thousands of acres of forest. These sawmills supply timber for 65,000 cases of refined petroleum which are packed at Port Arthur, Texas, each day, and for 15,000 cases per day at Los Angeles. This is additional to bulk business.

The Texas Company has also the largest asphalt refining plant in the world at Port Neches, Texas. It has its own sulphur mines, sulphur being used in refining of gasoline. Fuller’s earth being employed in the filtering process, which gives Texaco Motor Oil its clear, golden colour, the Company owns its own Fuller’s earth mines at Riverside, Texas. During the war it maintained its own shipyards and built its own ships for the United States Government at Bath, Maine.