WORLD’S OIL RESERVES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 November 1940, Page 9

WORLD’S OIL RESERVES

NEGATIVE BEARING ON WAR. Whenever figures are published of oil reserves in the United States or for the world in general, there are always a number of people, some interested parties, some impelled by natural curiosity or alarm, who cry out that in ten or fifteen years’ time the world will find itself without oil, and the whole economy of society will have to be revised to meet a situation in which modern machinery as we know it will have come to a full stop, writes Mr Robert Byron in the “World Review.” Such cries have been heard, in an increasing crescendo, ever since the oil industry began with Drake’s Pennsylvania well in 1859. In 1914, for instance, proved reserves in the United States were given as 810 million metric tons. There were patriotic Americans who, supposed that when those 810 million- tons had been consumed, their country’s oil resources would be at an end. Yet during the quarter of a century that has since elapsed, 2,746 million toins have been extracted from the American earth, while proved reserves now stand at 2,500 million tons. These and other facts make it plain that the question of the world's oil resources has only a negative bearing on the present war. The war may be brought to' an end because one side manoeuvres the other into a shortage of oil. But it will not be brought to an end on account of any general shortage. However long it continues, and however many countries it involves, the oil will be there for those who can get it.