2644.     ---------------.  [PETROLEUM PROCESSING.]  Cancellation of Stanolind’s Synthine Plant.  Vol. 3, No. 10, 1948, p. 926.

        Announcement was recently made by the Stanolind Co. that plans for the erection of a synthine plant at Garden City, Kans., were being canceled because of rising costs of construction and difficulty in obtaining materials.  From the viewpoint of the petroleum industry, this occurrence may have unfortunate repercussions in that it weakens the industry’s recent arguments that it can stand on its own feet in regard to building synthetic fuels plants and that there was no need for Government entry into competition with private industry in setting up a synthetic fuels industry.  If the economics on which the Stanolind decision was based are universally applicable, it would appear that the petroleum industry is in no financial position to construct a large-scale synthetic fuels industry in the immediate future.  The need for such an industry at the present time is somewhat debatable, but it is highly likely that sooner or later it will actually be needed for national security; the decision to erect one should not be left to Government forces with possible eventual government control of the entire petroleum industry.  Although this cancellation is a small matter commercially, it should not be seized upon as a sign of petroleum-industry weakness, which it certainly is not.