OIL POWER the outbreak of the Great War the provision of cheap fuel supplies has been the chief problem of this country, and economic conditions have arisen which appear to have made the probability of a return to these somewhat remote. These conditions have, how ever, been responsible for the great extension which has occurred in the adoption of oil for power production and have brought the price of coal and oil into close approxi mation. Indeed, if all the economic advantages attain able by the use of oil be taken into consideration, the price of the latter is lower than that of coal when used in the internal combustion engine. This state of affairs has been an unprecedented opportunity for oil, and the great restriction in the supplies of coal compelled fuel users to resort to that description of fuel of which large and comparatively cheap supplies are available. The relative position of these two forms of fuel at that time was such that it constituted a serious problem for this country.
The superiority of oil over coal in many directions has been confirmed over and over again, and it may be asserted without fear of contradiction that oil must be counted as one of the chief factors in the success of our arms on land as well as on sea in the recent European conflict. Viewing the future in its broad aspects, another assertion may be presented, with equal assurance, namely, that oil will play a very prominent part in the ultimate result of the commercial and industrial struggle which is now only in its initial stages.
The vital point on which this more extended develop ment is dependent is that of supply. There have been, from time to time, assertions made casting doubts on the continuation and expansion of petroleum pro duction. Many years ago, a similar attitude was adopted towards the matter of coal supply, and one recalls Jevons' well-known treatise on the coal question and the gloomy predictions he uttered in regard to the not far distant exhaustion of Great Britain's resources. He did not, however, allow any margin for the discovery of new seams and deposits, and precisely the same attitude is taken up by those who prophesy that, taking into consideration the progressive increase in consump tion, the crude oil supply of the world will soon give way under the strain. All calculations, which must,
of course, be of quite an arbitrary character, do not, and cannot, take into account the discovery and opening up of new deposits.
An important aspect of petroleum production is that the actual output is by no means representative of the potential production of a large number of the wells drilled and yielding. Especially is this the case in Mexico, Persia and one or two of the prolific American fields, the producing capacity of many of the wells in these fields being so great that transport facilities are not sufficiently extensive to handle the enormous quantities available, and the wells have to be capped and the oil drawn off as required. When one considers that many wells brought in, in Mexico and elsewhere, yield-100,000 and 200,000 barrels a day, and that the provision of storage facilities alone for such huge quantities would involve an extraordinarily large capital expenditure, apart from the f.?ct that existing transport facilities are not in any way equal to dealing with such quantities, it will be recognized that potential supply must be far ahead of actual supply, and that present output does not represent the amount of oil in sight. Moreover, there has occurred no period in oil history in which a shortage of supply has been known, at any rate, due to the failure of the sources of production. Whenever a shortage on the markets has happened, it has been attributable to factors other than production available. The progress of petroleum engineering has in itself conserved an enormous amount of oil which in previous years has been wasted, and, although wastage on the fields has been reduced, there are still many directions in which economics are necessary, and will, undoubtedly, be introduced.