The Petroleum Trade.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 211, 16 July 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Petroleum Trade.

■Russia:; petroleum threaten* to lake the plj'ce of the American article in Euiopean markets, owing to its extreme cheapness. The Russian welK yield immense quantities of oil, the great 'Drooja totmtain having 1 spouted 220,000 ton-*, or 55,000,000 gallons befoicitwa« copped. This oil was -worth nearly a million bteiling, but at Baku mest of it was lost for want of stoiago accommodation. The cost of boring the well was about £1,500. Last year \ho production of ciude petroleum at Baku exceeded 42O.('OO,000 gallons, or 10,000,000 barrels. It could easily have been ten or twenty times that amount, as theie is practically no limit to the supply, million.-, of gallons running away in waste into the Caspian sea for want "oi buyers. At Baku 120 firm? have refineries, which last year produced nearly 150,000,000 gallons refined petioleum. Since IS7B Russia ha= invested remunciath ely over £1 ,000,000 in oil steamers for the Caspian sw. In 1870 there was only one steamer in the ; to-day there are' 1,000. The refineiies keep feo much ahead of the developing transport that the best lefined petroleum or lamp oil te sold at 3 farthings a tmlion at Baku. At London the wholesale "price of the American article is about 0 pence per gallon. The exports from Baku alon^r the Batoum railway in 1885 comprised 37,000,000 gallons refined petroleum, 2,030,224 gallons lubricating oil. and 1,900,000 gallons of crude oil. Batoum is about the wtmc distance from London as is New York.