138 
THE PETROLEUM TRADE. 
well; and of the numberless joint-stock companies started for oil operations but very 
few succeeded, and are still in existence. Yet the enormous yield of 18G6 was mainly 
due to the large sums spent by those companies, and the great efforts they made to dis¬ 
cover oil. At times during the year 1866 the production of Western Pennsylvania 
alone amounted to not less that 15,000 barrels of crude oil per day, and that of the 
United States to not less than 18,000 barrels. But the general nature of an oil-well 
seems to be that it exhausts itself, and the average life of wells is generally estimated 
at one year, if it is as much as that. And just as a single well exhausts itself, so an 
entire district. A visitor passing through the oil territory will see more ruins of flow¬ 
ing and pumping wells than actual wells; he will pass through entire villages of 
abandoned derricks and tanks, where once thousands of barrels were produced a day, and 
where now not an engine, not a living soul, not one working well is to be seen, but only 
the ruins of past greatness. The total production of the oil regions of 15,000 barrels 
per day during September, 1866, has been gradually declining till now, and is to-day 
not over 8000 barrels, which is equal to a regular decline since that time of 700 barrels 
per month, or 160 barrels per week. No new territory is developed. The general 
bad success of joint companies has frightened away capitalists, and the wells now 
boring are not in new ground, but in known territory and in the midst of other wells 
already working. They only serve to exhaust the territory so much the quicker. A 
territory will yield altogether the same amount of oil with ten wells as with twenty, 
only twenty wells will pump it out in half the time; the decline will only be the more 
rapid. From these discouraging facts in regard to the supply let us look at the con¬ 
sumption. Oil is of too recent an introduction to have come to a regular yearly 
consumption. Every year witnesses an increase over the preceding year, and the 
low prices of the late times have made it a favourite light here as well as in other 
countries. Two years ago the consumption of this country was in the neighbourhood of 
850,000 barrels. In consequence of a larger Southern and Western demand, the con¬ 
sumption has increased, and may be put down for this year at over 1,000,000 barrels. 
In Europe our petroleum has to compete with rapeseed oil, which, in France, Germany, 
Belgium, and Holland is the only oil used for burning purposes, and is used for nothing 
else. In England whale oil was used of late years alongside of rapeseed oil. Bapeseed 
oil is more than double the price of our refined petroleum, and it is therefore not asto¬ 
nishing that Europeans have become largely our customers for refined petroleum. From 
about 800,000 barrels two years ago, the consumption in Europe ran last year to about 
1,150,000 barrels. This year, to judge from present indications, the regular increase of 
consumption in Europe will be about one-third over last year’s consumption. But to the 
regular increase of one-third over last year’s consumption will probably be added this year 
an extraordinary increase, resulting partly from the stoppage of the shale oil refineries in 
England, and partly from the failure of this year’s rapeseed crop in France and Germany. 
The shale oil refineries of England are said to have turned out last year not less than 
500,000 barrels refined, but were obliged to stop in consequence of the low price of pe¬ 
troleum. Many of them are broken up, and others, if an advance should take place, will 
not be ready in time. These two causes will stimulate the demand for our petroleum, 
and this year’s consumption will probably not be less than 1,600,000 barrels, or 1,700,000 
barrels. The total consumption at home and abroad will therefore be 2,700,000 barrels. 
Against this consumption we had on January 1, 1867, a stock of about 1,200,000 
barrels all reduced to refined, here and abroad ; add to this this year’s production, and 
we have the amount of oil that may be relied on for this year. Allowing for the 
declining quantity, 2,550,000 barrels crude, equal to 1,800,000 barrels refined, would be 
the total production for 1867. This production, with the stocks on January 1, 1867, 
would give us 3,000,000. If we deduct the probable consumption from these 3,000,000 
barrels, only a stock of 300,000 bairels refined oil will remain on hand here and abroad, 
and by March and April next even this stock will be used up entirely. In 1866 the pro¬ 
duction outstripped the consumption by 6000 to 7000 barrels crude every day. In 1867 
the consumption outstrips the production by at least 7000 barrels a day. In 1866 prices 
could not help but decline; in 1867 prices cannot help but advance .—Pittsburgh Com¬ 
mercial. 
