§ Mr. Michael Brownasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement regarding the supply and increased prices of aviation gasoline.
§ Mr. GrayThe availability of aviation gasoline has been affected in the United Kingdom by the withdrawal from the market of one of the supplying companies—Esso—in February this year, and internationally by the loss in June of almost 29W the entire export output of the Abadan refinery in Iran, which had produced about one-third of world supplies. The two remaining companies supplying the United Kingdom market—Shell and BP—have nevertheless been able to meet nearly all United Kingdom demand this year, and allocations have been in excess of 1978 consumption.
On 29 November Shell announced increases in the scheduled prices of all its products; in the case of aviation gasoline the increase was 6p per litre—34 per cent. on the net price—substantially more than for other products. I understand that this reflects Shell's need to purchase incremental supplies at high prices on the international spot market in order to meet
1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 A. United Kingdom imports of anthracite (thousand tonnes) 73 135 142 269 218 B. "A" as a percentage of total disposals of anthracite for consumption* in the United Kingdom 2.9 5.8 6.8 12.0 10.3 * Actual consumption information for the United Kingdom is not recorded.