SUPPLIES OF MOTOR FUEL.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1920, Page 8

SUPPLIES OF MOTOR FUEL.

NEW INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN. A new township is being created on what has so far been a barren waste at Skewen, between Swansea and Neath. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company has taken over 400 acres and is expending, between £0,000,000 $pA £7,000,000 on establishing oil refineries to deal with the regular cargoes of crude oil from the Persian Gulf. Importation will begin next February. Dwellings for many hundreds of workers have been completed, and in addition, shops, railway station, hospital and public hall are beng erected. Store tanks are beng completed at the docks, which will hold refined oil. The crude oil will be pumped direct from the steamer through four-mile pipe tracks into the refineries at Skewen, and after treatment the oil will be pumped back to Swansea. The Motor Legislation Committee, representing all branches of the motor trade of the country and upwards of 200,000 owners of mechanically-pro-pelled vehicles, in impressing upon the Government the serious effect caused to the community by the recent increase in petrol prices, recommends that the agreement between the AnsjloPersian Company and the Shale Company be reviewed, so that the distribution of motor spirit under the agreement be available through agencies independent of the two large trusts; that all statutory gas companies having an annual consumption of not less than jftOO tons of coal he compelled to in-tal. within a limited period, the necessary plant for the production of crude benado (if this were done there would at once be available a further 30,00(1,000 gallons of motor spirit annually); and that the Government take such steps as will ensure that the output of benzole is available to the public sit a reasonable price, and is in no sense eon- j trolled by private oil companies.