Liquid Treasure on tine High Seas

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 312, 24 March 1928, Page 17

Liquid Treasure on tine High Seas

Spick and Span Tanker at Auckland. . . Huge Oil-fleet and its origin with a shell ... The Oliva and her cargo.

Written for THE SUN by

J. G. McLEAN

H GREAT black serpent throbbed upon the quay; writhing and quivering in contions. Beside the quay lay the spotless tanker Oliva, dean as any pleasure yacht, and the serpent was a mighty, flexible tube through which, every hour, were pouring 170 tons of petrol. A minor computation will show the import of such a circumstance. The Oliva brought to Auckland 7,400 tons of petrol, the largest shipment ever brought here in a single cargo. Her powerful pumps poured the pale, colourless, yet potent spirit, into the shore mains, and so into the tanks of Freeman’s Bay, at the rate of 12,840 gallons an hour. Each gallon is subject to the petrol tax introduced last November, so that every hour’s pumping means a contribution of £219 to the New Zealand Treasury, while the whole cargo represents £9,636 —just about enough to pave two miles of modern highway. , • * * The bosoms of the seven seas are the highways for this new traffic in oil. Backward and forward go the tankers, long lean ships, with their funnels usually set astern, for other-

viae sparks might alight upon the £ argo, and transform the vessel into a "hip of flame. Their fluid cargoes represent colossal wealth. In the oil fleets alone, fs signified some hint of the magnitude of the world's oil busihess. a gusher bursts in Oklahoma, ! und a tanker is dispatched to New j 1 ® r l*hns. Dyak head-liunters drive a flying-crew from some remote valley fl Borneo, and output is less by just so much that an empty ship is diverted |

to San Pedro, California, instead ot carrying on to Balak-papang. The world-wide enterprise of transporting oil finds its reflection in the international colour of the oil fleets. A great black tanker edges into the Western Wharf at Auckland. She is sombre and dingy, except for the garish colour-bands which ring her funnel, and a vivid patch where the Stars and Stripes float above her stern. Uncle Sam’s merchant marine has a weakness for gaudy funnels, but its tastes elsewhere run to a gloomy sobriety. The ship is the El Ciervo, perhaps Spanish, perhaps Californian. Another wears the Norwegian flag, a chaste banner bearing a blue cross, and a third is Dutch to the masthead. A Venture in Shells Forty years or so ago, in the days when kerosene was all that mattered in oil production, and petrol was jettisoned as a waste product, a Lpn-

don dealer named Marcus Samuels took his children to Margate for a holiday. They collected shells, with which they decorated little boxes. These their provident sire sold as trinket-boxes, a trifle garish, but quite a profitable sideline, so the enterprise was fostered. | It was this quaint venture that i gave Marcus Samuels the spare capiJ tal with which to invest money in oil. | First of all he peddled kerosene round

London in a vehicle that was but | little removed from a perambulator. , This, too, was profitable. The gentle- ] man had a faculty for turning over \ his money; but he had cause to be : eternally grateful to the fragile, deli- i cately-tinted shells from which he i made his first spare cash, so it was 1 not surprising that he adopted the shell as his trademark for the rapidlyexpanding oil business. Thus began the far-flung enterprise of the Shell Oil Company. While .this was happening, an obscure clerk, i totting figures in a branch office of j the Dutch East India Company, was

No yellow peril here. This “one piece China hoy.” bringing in the tea, looks pleased with life on the Oliva. cherishing the vision of a fortune founded in oil, and a New Zealand lawyer named D’Arcy was spending the first fruits of a successful speculation in a Queensland gold mine. Later D’Arcy was to invest capital in Persian oil. He automatically joined forces with Samuel 3, now Sir Marcus, in consolidating British petroleum interests, and the pair allied their fortunes with those of Henri Deterding, the erstwhile Dutch clerk, whose dream had crystallised into a golden reality, the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company. D’Arcy died a Croesus; Deterding, although a Dutchman, was knighted by the King of England; Samuels became Lord Bearsted. And the vast organisation which this trio had promoted took charge of the world’s oil supply, even wresting sovereignty Lorn the mighty Standard Oil Trust, founded by John D. Rockefeller. How Dutch and British interests overlap in the petrol business is shown by the fact that some of the Shell oil-

tankers sail under the British flag, while some are under the Dutch. National affinities, in this instance, are tied with a golden cord. There are Dutch clerks in the great London offices of the powerful concern,, and the fortunes of the Royal Dutch and the British Imperial go hand in hand, their associate enterprises disguised under a host of subsidiaries, such as Shell Oil Company, Ltd., of New Zealand, Shell Oil of California, and the Asiatic Petroleum Company of China. But the spick and span Oliva is a British ship. The red ensign droops from her jack-staff, and only at the

The well-decks of the Oliva are usually awash when the ship is fully-laden at sea, and the fore and aft bridge, shown in this picture, is used as the main promenade. Inset: The red, white and blue flag of the vast Shell shipping fleet, which includes tankers registered tinder the British, Dutch and American colours. truck, where floats the same houseflag as Dutch tankers carry, is The alliance signified. * * * Enter the Western Wharf througli a little temporary gate, surrender your pipe and matches to a sentry who guards the picket, and advance to marvel at the exceeding cleanliness of this immaculate ship. I suspected this might be a rare circumstance, this unsullied splendour, before which paled even the smartness of the smart C. and D. boats, and the spotless texture of His Majesty’s ships of war. Could the Oliva have donned her party frock for Auckland? But no. They told me this was usual. Nay, unusual, for an attentive apprentice discovered a speck upon the paintwork. Safety First Below us, as we stood upon the bridge, squirmed the serpentine pipeline, alive with oil. The ship’s tanks, carrying 7,400 tons of that fluid which makes the world go round on wheels, were yielding up their treasure.

The grime and grease of oil have been separated from this phase of the business. Never a drop is spilled, or even seen, when the ship pumps her cargo ashore. No burden could be discharged with less fuss, but there

are significant reminders of the dan- . gerous freight. "Safety First,” read ! notices in great red type. Warnings > in five languages, English, Dutch, Ger--1 man, French and Chinese (the ship carries a Chinese crew) forbid smokI ing, or the use of naked lights. Smok- ’ ing under any circumstances is per- * mitted only abaft the funnel, and it 5 is rigidly prohibited when the ship is loading or discharging. Such are the 3 precautions then taken that the fires • are quenched, steam for the pumps is i drawn from a boiler-house on the 3 wharf, and even the meals are cooked 3 ashore.

If the officers wish to smoke they; have to wander down the wharf, j beyond the pickets. My Lady Nicotine ! is not popular on a tanker. * * Oil, as a cargo, is distrusted by 1 mariners, and the tankers are speci-h

ally constructed, with strong longitudinal reinforcements, to meet the strains and stresses its transport involves. The Oliva's 18 tanks occupy most of her space, and when fully laden she is so low in the water that

the iron well-decks, a tangle of valves, grids and pipe-lines, are awash in any kind of a sea. On this account the ship is traversed by an elevated “fore and aft bridge,” linking the lofty ’midships superstructure, where the officers dwell and have their being, with the forecastle and the poop. The tanks themselves, arranged nine on either side, are huge, roomy chambers, fitted with smaller expansion tanks to check the swilling movement that develops with the rolling of the ship. The frightfully combustible gases given off by petrol are perhaps the worst danger on a tanker. Expansion and contraction, according to ruling temperatures, are normal processes, causing no concern; but they are accompanied always by an accumulation of fumes above the oil, and this gas must be released at Intervals by a pipe passing up the mast. When the tanks are empty they are left so full of fumes that the ship leaving port is in a more dangerous condition than a laden ship entering it; for whereas the latter would simply burn, however fiercely, the former would explode bodily in a burst of flame. These are chances that the tankmariner accepts as part of everyday routine. As far as he can guard against them, he does so, with coffer-

dams, full of water, dividing the tanks , from the rest of the ship, and boats ! swung outboard whenever the ship is at sea. Further, when the tanks are j empty the fumes are cleared away as speedily as possible. An explorer in ; a gas-mask goes down to examine j them, and subsequently they are filled with water-ballast, which makes a j capital swimming bath when the ship is in the tropics. But such pleasures j are for one way only. Swimming in j petrol would be most unpleasant. Tanks Across the World With her clean, white paintwork, ; tapering masts, and funnel and ventilation cowls painted a serene and j pleasant yellow, the Oliva looks more • like a yacht than a merchantman. It is her ports of call that betray her ■ business. From Ornskoldwijk, Sweden, to San Pedro, California, or a nook among the sampans in a Chinese i river, her roving ways may guide her. She knows the whisper of the tides at Rouen; the murmur of the wind over San Francisco Bay; and the squalor j

ot the primitive waterfront at Balakpapang. the great Oriental oil-port, where the romance of a vast industry is curtained by towering trestles and refining-stills. Between these havens, and more, plies the world’s oil fleet, whereof over 100 ships carry the yellow smokestack of the Shell and associated interests. It was only to be consistent, if nothing else, that the fleet’s founders cherished fond memories of the sands of Margate, and named each ship after a shell. So came the Oliva, which has the following officers: Captain J. H. Moller, chief-officer H.

C. Farrington, second officer H. S. Griffin, third officer G. Rankin, wireless operator C. R. Spencer, chief engineer G. Armstrong, second engineer G. Glendinning, third engineer

W. H. Ripley, fourth engineer W. H. Williams, fifth engineer R. Brown and apprentices R. G. Arnold and C. T. Dickinson. Each ship of the fleet carries its j very own shell enshrined in the ! saloon, and some are as big as soupplates, others smaller than thimbles, j The Oliva shell—pronounced with a long "i”—is a smooth, beautifullymarked creation of tortoise-shell hue. and it rests most proudly on a setting of mcther-of-pearl. Then there is New Zealand's own tanker, the Pausfl named for a shell |of iridescent glory; the Physa. a ; frequent visitor; and the Cyrena, which left her bones on the Wanganui I Beach. I Just to show that the supply of shells is not running out, the com- | pany recently added several brand new motor-ships, of 10,000 tons ap4e#., jto its tank fleet. Among them were the Clam, the Buiysses, and the Bullj mouth, and there are others that bear , fearsome Latin names: so that a study of the company':, register is an j excursion into the higher couchology.