Out of Gas

On Havana's broad Malecon, sweating drivers pushed automobiles toward service stations and into queues that were sometimes ten blocks long. Desperate motorists waited all night to get their ration of three gallons when gasoline pumps opened in the morning. More than half of Havana's automobiles were garaged for lack of gas. Milk deliveries were cut, taxis almost vanished, and black-market fuel sold as high as $1.20 a gallon.

Dependent on the U.S. for its motor fuel supply, Cuba was going to be on short rations at least until spring eased the U.S. shortage and released tankers for the Cuban run. As a stopgap move, the government last week ordered sugar-mill owners to put aside 40 million gallons of blackstrap molasses for the making of alcohol. Combined with gasoline, the alcohol would soon go into motorists' tanks as carburante national, a low-grade, high-knock fuel.

Elsewhere in Latin America last week, oil was also a Page One subject:

P:Chile, trying to save gasoline (and dollar exchange), put police patrols on the roads to hold motorists down to 40 m.p.h. The government also asked motorists to cut out-of-town jaunts to one a fortnight. Chile's fuel future looked bright. With great fanfare, scientists at the University of Concepcion cracked 150 liters of petroleum from the new Tierra del Fuego fields, pronounced the product excellent.

P:Colombia rushed gasoline up from Peru when 6,000 Tropical (Standard) Oil Co. workers walked out in protest against the firing of exploration crews.

P:Argentina cut the monthly gasoline ration to eight gallons when 10,000 oil company employees started a slowdown.

P:Venezuela, sitting on the biggest proven oil pool on the continent, was thoroughly enjoying the crisis. By taking its one-sixth royalty (70 million barrels) in kind from the big private companies and then reselling most of it back to them at scarcity prices, the government was ringing up a fancy profit. Venezuelan Oil Czar Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso, in a deal that would give Argentine State Trader Miguel Miranda a dose of his own medicine, was ready to barter 2 million barrels of Venezuela's high-priced oil for Miranda's expensive beef. Oil-starved Argentines thought the medicine not too bitter.

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