ABSTRACT
FROM what I have said of the advantages of large-scale production and of the paramount importance of working to capacity, it will follow that increase in output will, in the long run, tend to lead to price reductions. This, however, applies without qualification (8) only to marketing and refining, not to production; crude is, as far as our present knowledge goes, an irreplaceable, i.e. diminishing, resource, and it is by no means impossible that, at a given moment, increase in demand will make it necessary to resort to more expensive production methods, and also that crude, no longer being discovered at an appropriate rate, will assume a scarcity value which it has not as yet.
