AUTOMOBILISM

Oil, please!
Eight francs, nine francs, nine fifty! Nobody says a word? Sold! At least for a few hours!... Don't think it's a joke, especially. It's simply the dizzying rise in gasoline that we wanted to represent by this list of the successive prices of the 5-liter can over the past few months. And the party will continue. These gentlemen of "oil" are not going to limit their demands there, at the beginning of a crisis that is shaping up to be serious; while we could have limited its effects in part by promoting automobile tourism, their prices are rising, rising without stopping. At the beginning of a season, at a time when the automobile trade is likely to be in full swing, they throw a huge paving stone into the pond. Is this how we think we are promoting business?

Obviously, we are still dependent on foreign countries for oil supplies and our poor franc has a hard time resisting the assaults that are being delivered to it and is in a marked inferiority to pay for imports. It does not seem, however, that the fall in our currency is of a nature to justify the formidable rise in the price of automobile fuel.

Will we one day be able to find in our own soil the oil necessary for the ever-increasing needs of the automobile industry? It is unlikely, despite all the efforts and all the research carried out. Our wealth in oil slicks is rather meager. Let us judge for ourselves...

In September 1924, the Gabian well in Hérault, where drilling had been carried out for several months, began by discharging 25 to 30 liters per hour. This flow rate, after a few days, dropped to 10/15 liters. By continuing the work, two months later, a flow rate of 1,000 liters per hour was obtained, which has since been reduced to around 10,000 liters per day. According to the calculations made, the Gabian oil field would have an area of ​​10 square kilometers and would allow us to hope for results that are not sensational, but nevertheless interesting.

But besides this known yield, nothing or almost nothing. No more in Auvergne, in Mirabel or in Beaulieu where work is continuing without having produced anything exploitable, than in Castaguèse (Pyrenees), than in Saint-Sever or in Brittany, are there any reports of notable gushing. So it is not from this side that we will be able to hope for salvation for long.

Nine fifty ten francs! Ten fifty! The can of gasoline will continue to rise!
Unless we finally decide to have an oil policy. Oh! let us hear, a healthy, clean policy, which curbs the pretensions of the trusters. Obviously, this is perhaps asking a lot…

Daniel Cousin