AMERICA’S STOCK. OF “ILE.”

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1121, 12 August 1882, Page 2

AMERICA’S STOCK. OF “ILE.”

Feab has been expressed in some quarters that the enormously increased consumption of petroleum will exhaust the supply within a few years. As a proof of this uncomfortable theory, it is pointed out that many once prolific localities in the United States have been pumped dry. But these pessimist prophets do not seem to be aware that quite ns many new wells are sunk in other places, thus maintaining the former level of supply. A correspondent of Bradet reef's Journal, wriling from Oil City the other day, estimates the stock of crude oil m hand at 30,000,000 barrels. As the annual consumption of tho whole world does not exceed, it is believed, 24,000,000 barrels, the next twelve months are more than provided for already. Nor does there seem any reason to anticipate any subsequent diminution of the supply. Our contemporary affirms that a quite trifling enhancement of market rates “ would send men wlld-catting in every direction "in search of new oil fields. But existing prices allow such a narrow margin of profit that many speculators who have purchased promising lend prefer to leave it untapped for the present. They may possibly find themselves out of their reckoning; petroleum is being discovered all over tho world, and many countries which now draw their supplies from America will be likely to supply their own wants before long. Altogether there seems little cause to fear any dearth of the oil which has come to play such an Important part in tho social economy of the world.