Oil Upped

Last week oil prices were upped lot to 15-c- per bbl. -- first change in the $1 level since September 1933. First to up the posted price was Sun Oil, which was promptly followed by Humble Oil & Refining, Standard Oil of New Jersey subsidiary and the biggest crude oil buyer in Texas. Within a few days oil had been upped throughout the mid-continent territory, and the rise soon spread to Pennsylvania. Only State to withhold an advance was California, which has succeeded East Texas as sore spot of the industry. There Standard of California slashed gasoline prices 2-c- per gal. to "meet competitive situations," renewing talk not of an increase but a decrease in West Coast crude oil. Other oil States, operating under a proration pact, have succeeded in stemming the flow of "hot" oil more effectively than Secretary of the Interior Ickes' Oil Administration, which expired with the Blue Eagle. Meantime oil in storage has dropped to the lowest figure since 1929, while demand has picked up 100,000 bbl. per day over a year ago, and for once the industry got through an autumn without a gasoline price war. Sales of the oil industry's chief product-- gasoline--set an all-time record of 427,464,000,000 gal. last year. Oil profits were the best in five years.

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