Cootamundra

23 It made sense that a site used to store bulk fuel would appeal to any oil companies keen to establish a foothold in Australia. These were high quality well equipped bulk facilities. On 31 July 1946 the Herald reported: ‘In acquiring the 14,300-ton British tanker. ‘St. Anglen.’ last week, the Australian Motorists Petrol Co. Ltd. and its subsidiary. Alba Petroleum Co. of Australia Pty. Ltd. will be the first fuel companies to operate a vessel under Australian control since the termination of hostilities.’ The Australian start-up Ampol ‘purchased from the Disposals Commission, eight inland ‘A’ class bulk fuel depots, capable of storing, 500,000 gallons of fuel, for good reason. These spoils of war would ‘allow the company almost unlimited storage when the tanker begins running, should another emergency arise, the company is honoured to return the depots to the Government’. On 19 June 1947, two years after the end of World War Two, Cootamundra’s inland fuel depot site was transformed into a facility for Ampol Petroleum Ltd on the basis of a £1,000 pound deposit for a property officially valued at £42,605! The purchase price for the inland fuel depots in NSW was apparently as little as £7,000 pound, a fraction of their all-up construction costs. POST-WAR WITH A FULL TANK What next for the ‘surplus to requirements’ depot? Two workers erecting a new tank at the Cootamundra depot. 1950s. National Library of Australia