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Story: Energy supply and use

Oil on show, 1910

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Oil on show, 1910

A sales team working for the Colonial Oil Company sell Pratts Motor Spirit and Benzine (petrol), Vacuum lubricating oils, and White Rose kerosene at an exhibition. They are also selling stoves (on the left) and heaters (behind the stoves). In 1910 kerosene and lubricants were still a large part of the oil market. Colonial Oil later became Mobil Oil.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, Steffano Webb Collection (PAColl-3061)

Reference: 1/1-009071; G

by Steffano Francis Webb

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Megan Cook, Energy supply and use – Oil consumption, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/21432/oil-on-show-1910 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Megan Cook, published 12 April 2010.