OIL REFINERY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 February 1940, Page 5

OIL REFINERY

BIG PLANT PLANNED IN AUSTRALIA DEALING WITH BIG QUANTITY OF CRUDE PRODUCT. SAVING IN .DOLLAR EXCHANGE. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. SYDNEY, February 23. The erection in Sydney of an oil refinery capable of dealing with 21,000.000 gallons of crude oil yearly is planned by the Signal Oil and Gas Company, of Los Angeles, who claim that their operations will save the Commonwealth the equivalent of £1,000,000 a year in dollar exchange. Negotiations are proceeding with the Government by Mr Allen T. Chase, vice-president of the Chase Securities Company, of Los Angeles. Half the capital needed for the venture will be American and the other half Australian, and the majority of the employees Australian. A Canberra message says that efforts to secure supplies of petrol from sterling sources sufficient for Australia’s war and civil needs have failed. The British Government has advised the Commonwealth to obtain its supplies from the Netherlands East Indies in order to economise in tanker space.

Australia had suggested securing petrol from Iran and paying for it with sterling, of which the Commonwealth has strong reserves, but Britain replied that dollars would have to be found in London for the sterling which Australia sent Iran, and that there would be no saving in dollars. as the Empire dollar pool would have to make the amount good.