THE BENZINE MARKET.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3404, 7 February 1920, Page 6

THE BENZINE MARKET.

RISE IN PRICE PROPHESIED

A commercial man, who is keenly interested in the benzine supply, informed a Star reporter to-day that there was every prospect of an iinhiediate rise in the local price of oil. So far as quantity was concerned, he said, the“ position was much easier tian it had been for some time. as there was enough in the local market to supply imn‘¢ediat.e requirements,‘ while there were large "shipments appl'oaching. While the Vexatious complications of exchange had. hoivever. made‘ merchants chtary of committing themselves to any extent in American purchases,~ the benzine had to be got, and men‘ chants would almost certainly guard, against losing their profit by the uncertainties of exchange rates, as had] happened so frequently of late, when American goods were handled, by fixing a price which would -I'ea'»'e them a safe margin. There,was. he pointed‘ out, plenty of British oil purcliasable‘ across the sea (without any exchange fiomplexities), but the difficulty was in getting the ships for transport to this market. Onelof the few such ships on the water, the Cyrena, was due to»morrow wiith a large cargo of oil, ‘but he doubted if that oil would go on the local market at the price now ruling.