Heavy Oil

On the Pacific coast last week was Oilman Harry Ford Sinclair, conferring and inspecting. Generally accepted in the oil industry as the objects of his visit were: 1) A merger of Sinclair Consolidated Oil, Prairie Oil & Gas and Rio Grande Oil; 2) sale of Sinclair's eastern retail outlets to Standard of California.

Especially important to oilmen seemed object No. 2, for from California's wells have oozed troubles which have spread over the entire industry. In an attempt to eliminate overproduction by forcing independent operators to limit their output, Standard of California began cutting crude oil prices, sent great quantities of gasoline east as cheap as 6 cents a gallon in shipload lots. To meet this new level in the price of petroleum products, Standard of New Jersey through two subsidiaries* cut crude prices from 19-c- to 41-c- a barrel.

Although in Tulsa some 500 independent producers ran howling to a mass meeting and resolved to petition both Congress and the Petroleum Institute for help against bad Standard, the eventual result of Standard's move will probably be to curtail production until some of the gasoline surplus has been absorbed.

*Humble Oil in the Texas fields and Carter Oil in the mid-continent.

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