OIL & WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 March 1940, Page 5

OIL & WAR

POSITION OF GERMANY

SHORTAGE OF ESSENTIAL SUPPLIES,

AN ALLEGEDLY INSOLUBLE PROBLEM.

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY. March 12.

Though experts on military questions. like professional economists, are rarely found all to agree on any single point in the highly-controversial subject which they have chosen to study, it is clear that all are agreed on the vital importance which oil supplies must play in the conduct of modern warfare.

The position of Britain’s oil supplies was summarised in the current number of the Petroleum Press Service, a reliable journal of the petroleum industry, which clearly proved it to be highly satisfactory. As regards the position of German supplies of oil, the facts contained in “This Fascinating Oil Business." by Mr. Max Ball, former president of the American Association ot Petroleum Geologists, are considered to be most illuminating.

This study reveals that even the lowest authoritative estimate of the Germans' 1940 war time oil requirements was 90,000,000 barrels, but if fighting became active the author believes Germany's needs would increase to some 142,000,000 barrels or two and a half times her peace time needs, which is generally agreed to be the normal increase of a country’s war time over peace time requirements.

German oil production in 1938. including occupied territories, was 19,000,000 barrels, figures which her newer oilfields and synthetic processes. Mr. Ball points out, can scarcely raise beyond 25,000,000 barrels. Germany has only, in the author’s view, sufficient oil in storage to prevent shortage for perhaps nearly a year. Mr. Ball points out in this connection that even if Germany obtained all Rumania’s total export surplus, this amounts to only some 18,000,000 barrels yearly. Russia's export surplus was only some 6,500,000 barrels in 1938.

Mr. Ball concluded: “For Germany to win she must end the war in the near future, strike in her. home territory new oilfields much more productive than any she has found, gain free access to ocean-borne oil supplies, or prevent the ocean-borne supplies of France and Britain. Up to the moment Germany has shown no convincing evidence of ability'to do any of these things.”