Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1942-07-16
Fact And Opinion
The Struggle for Oil.
BY e. C.. Stengelsen.

huge stores OF oil, newspaper COM
mentators freely predicted that unless
she secured access to new sources,
her military machine would ultimate
| ly bog down for lack of fuel.
Her combined wartime needs, civil
ian and military, were estimated at
80 million barrels. Of this quantity,
she and her two allies, Austria and
Hungary, produced together about
million barrels. How much she
produced, in addition, by synthetic
processes, was not known, but one
estimate fixed it as high as 9 million
barrels.
Conquest of Poland gave her some
of the new sources she needed. At
their peak production, the Polish
wells turned out some Is million bar
rels per year. 1t was still far short
of her needs, however.
Then she took over Roumania. This
country's annual production had been
as high as 81 million barrels. It
gave her total from her own wells
and from those of her allies and
conquered lands, of 81 million bar
rels. Adding her synthetic produc-
ton would bring the grand total to
somewhere around 80 million barrels
1t must, however, be borne in mind
that the production figures given
above are from peacetime days. 1t
may be presumed they reflect the
amount the market was able to alb
sorb rather than possible maximum
output. It is probable that if there
was urgent need of it, their output
could be greatly expanded.
| Newspaper commentators still
speak of Germany's desperate need
of oil and give it as the chief reason
for the drive on the Caucasus from
one direction, and the Libyan cam
paign, with the oil wells of Iraq and
Iran as the ultimate objective, from
another.
The foregoing figures would, how
ever, seem to throw some doubt on
the validity of these assertions. This,
the commentators, too, seem to re-
cognize, in that they now stress her
need of lubricants and no longer
mention a threatened shortage of
fuel.
But this claim seems equally weak
After three years of war, there is
no indication that her military ma
chine is being slowed down for lack
of efficient lubricants.
Consider, now, the situation of the
United Nations with respect to oil.
Let us first take Russia.
The Soviet armies allegedly obtain
80 per cent of their oil from the
Caucasus. The remaining 20 per
cent is presumably obtained from
Russia's eastern wells.
What will be Russia's situation if
the Nazis sever her oil lines, rising
in the Caucasus? Even if her enc
mics merely cut her supply lines and
do not try actual invasion?
She would, obviously, be forced to
look to tanker shipments from the
Americas, delivered at Murmansk and
Archangel. The burden of supply
ing four fifths of her needs by over
seas shipments would fall on the
United Nations tanker fleets.
But it is not Russia, alone, that
must be kept supplied from Amer
lean wells. If the flow of oil from
Iraq and Iran should be interrupted,
the same would be true of Britain
and Australia.
We are faced with the situation
that if the Nazis shut off our supplies
of oil from Russia and the Middle
East, the entire non-Axis world must
look to America.
1t seems no longer to be so much
of case of trying to dry up the Axis
oil sources as to keep ourselves sup
piled. The shoe is now on the other
foot in that we are fighting to pre-
vent Germany from doing to us what
Britain originally set out to do to
Germany.
(ASdlIi, IllS ldCL STATES US Ill Tie
face that our primary need is for
shipping. We have licked the pro-
duction problem. But it does little
good to produce vast quantities of
war materials if we cannot get them
to the battlefelds. This is particu-
larly true of oil.
How much tanker tonnage it will
require, only those in possession of
the full facts can estimate. But it is
probably far in excess of anything
the United Nations have.
It will call for tremendous in
crease in shipyard production and
effective methods of combating Axis
submarines The toll of sinkings all
over the world-upward of 400 with
in the last few months in the Western
Hemisphere alone-has probably been
considerably greater than the new
tonnage we have added.
1t is not lack of manpower or
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