PETROLEUM. 
65 
The elimination of excessive competition in oil production, that 
is to say, of competition within the geological unit or reservoir, will 
go far toward placing petroleum on the same footing with other 
mineral products. It will lessen the gambling aspect of oil-field 
exploration by bringing a. greater measure of engineering practice to 
bear on the search for oil . 1 It will strike to the roots of wasteful 
production and overproduction by enabling the producer to gain 
greater profit in holding the oil underground until needed and then 
producing it according to the best current technique than by rushing 
headlong into hasty production as is necessary under present cir- 
cumstances. It will create conditions of supply that will cater indiffer- 
ently to inferior uses, to the sustained benefit of all activities actually 
dependent upon the distinctive character of petroleum products. In 
a word, this simple expedient will prevent the migratory character 
of petroleum from working at severe cross-purposes, as it now does, 
with the best interests of the petroleum industry and the public. 
Tapering use of oil as steam-raising fuel . — While better rounded 
integration in the production of petroleum will find physical wastes 
unprofitable and lose interest in supplying low T -use demands, a con- 
structive economic policy will also clear the path of certain obstacles 
now retarding an efficient utilization of petroleum. These obstacles 
are chiefly two: The large amount of fuel oil thrown on the market 
as a necessary product of refining, which must find an outlet ; and the 
industrial dependency upon oil-developed steam power, strongly 
marked in certain parts of the country lacking in coal. A wise policy 
will turn the use of fuel oil into higher channels and narrow the 
necessity for employing the oil-fired steam engine. 
In respect to fuel oil, we have already seen that u cracking ” dis- 
tillation can turn it in part into gasoline, while without change fuel 
oil may be used efficiently in the Diesel type of engine. Here are the 
means, then, for escaping the steam-boiler use of oil. “ Cracking ” 
ma}^ be expected to come into practice as needed, but its progress 
would be facilitated bj^ extended research on a commercial scale in 
keeping with the true importance of this matter . 2 The Diesel engine 
has been scarcely used in the United States; its introduction on a 
broad scale may be facilitated by a campaign of educational infor- 
mation, by the encouragement of manufacturing plants, and par- 
ticularly by favorable consideration for adoption in connection with 
the Navy and merchant marine of this country . 3 
3 A substantial gain from this will lie in the field of investments in respect to lower- 
ing the losses now so abundant in connection with fake and unsubstantial oil companies. 
2 Such work is being done by the Bureau of Mines, blit with financial support scarcely 
in keeping with the potential importance of the experiments. 
3 The British ministry of reconstruction has a provisional committee for the internal- 
combustion engine industry which, presumably, will press this matter for Great Britain. 
