PETROL PRICES.

Shannon News, 4 June 1929, Page 1

PETROL PRICES.

The opinion that petrol prices must ultimately rise above to-day's rates is

expressed in “The Price of Petrol/ just published by E. H. Davenport, the well-known British fuel technologist. The writer points out that the increa.-. ing use of the “cracking" process is keeping the price down. He states thai if the cracking process was abandonoand the world's needs to : day were sup plied by “straight run" petrol, tin price would be more than doubled. Tincracking process is a method of deal

mg with the residue after straight run petrol is produced. The alternative is to increase the production of crude oil to provide enough straight run motor spirit. In 1914 crude oil yielded only 18£ per cent, of petrol. The gradual extension of cracking in

the United States has increased th. yild. In 1919, 25.9 per cent, was recovered from crudes, and in 1927, 36.7 per cent, of petrol was derived. The argument against increasing the production of crudes rather than employing cracking is that the expense 'of prospecting and drilling is too huge. The author mentions that between 1916 and 1927 an estimated total of 66,774 unproductive oil wells were sunk in the United States. This w r as an average of one failure for every four drillings, and the dry bores cost on the average £2,000, each. The author says: —“It is true that the manufacture of cracked petrol is a more expensive refineryprocess than the manufacture of straight run petrol. The cracking plant probably costs twice as much and the operating expenses must be greater. But it is obviously much less expensive to construct and operate a cracking plant in order to increase the recovery of petrol per barrel of crude oil by 35 per cent, than to prospect and develop a new oilfield in order to increase the production of ‘crude oil, for straight run refining, by 35 per cent."