Evening star., 1944-02-20
World War II, War of Oil,'
ToLeave US. Supply Short
New and Foreign Sources Must Be Found to Meet
Daily Requirements Texas Area
Now Self.Suficient
By Richard L. Stokes.

yielding a tiny driblet Of 10000 barrels
day. The Midwest section, which for
merly supplied 25 per cent of the coun-
try'S petroleum, has lately become
deficit area through the progressive ex-
haustion of fields in Illinois, Oklahoma,
Indiana and Nebraska. The districts
production of 100000 daily barrels at
Pearl Harbor declined to 100000 last
July and will drop to 900 by next
spring.
The region comprising the Pacific
Coast States and those west of the
Rockies are due to cross the deficit line
when proposed operations in the Pacific,
requiring 52.4 per cent of its output,
reach full speed.
The solitary district in the whole
country where oil production can be
increased substantially from known re-
serves is in West Texas This prospec-
tive surplus has been earmarked for
growing war needs and for redressing
shortages in the Middle West, which is
already, for the first time, importing and
rationing crude oil for its refineries
Look to Middle East.
Sharpest attention is centered on oil
deposits in Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Estimated actual production of fields
theoretically made available in the Mid
die East and Egypt for the European
arena approximates 335.OO0 barrels OF
crude oil a day, or less than one
twelfth the present American daily out
put of 4,347,000 barrels In rank of i'm
portance, the sources are as follows:
Iran, 100000 barrels day; Iraq, $4,000;
Egypt, $4,000; Bahrein, 10000, and Saudi
Arabia, $4,000.
Operations in Iran and Egypt are 100
per cent British controlled; those of
Iraq are under joint Anglo American
and native ownership and those OF
Bahrein and Saudi Arabia are wholly
American controlled. Round-number
percentages for the entire area are:
Great Britain, 79; United States, l6, and
Others 5.
The smallest producer in fact and the
greatest in potentially is Saudi Arabia,
of which oilmen speak in superlatives
with bated breath. They describe it as
the most spectacular discovery in Pc
troleum history and a reservoir of fan
tastic proportions. A 60-year concession,
covering 25000O square miles, was nego-
tiated 10 years ago between the pic
turesque monarch, King Abdul Aziz Ibn
Saud, and an American engineer, Lloyd
N. Hamilton, on behalf of the California
Arabian Standard Oil Co., Jointly owned
by California Standard and Texas OIL
Faced Desperate Competition.
Hamilton worked single-handed
against desperate British, German,
French and japanese competitors, back
ed by all the financial and political
pressure at the command of their gov
ernments. He was seeking to introduce
an ultramodern industry into country
still leading the life of the Old Testa-
ment. His success has been hailed as
the centurys most brilliant feat of in
dustrial diplomacy. Among other things,
the American is said to have loaned his
oil drillers to sink water wells in the
desert and to have placed the company's
machine shops at the Kings disposal as
repair bases for his personal fleet of 500
motor cars and trucks
The Government took little interest IN
the Arabian field until last spring, when
Brig. Gen Patrick J. Hurley, as Presi-
dent Roosevelts representative. visited
King 1bn Saud. On Hurley's return. one
of the Capitals most occult agencies. the
Petroleum Reserve Corp. was set up TO
procure and stockpile petroleum and its
products from sources outside the United
States
PRO started as subsidiary of the Re-
construction Finance Corp, dominated
by Secretary of Commerce Jesse H.
JONES' passed briefly into the hands Of
Foreign Economic Administrator Leo T.
Crowley and finally dropped into the
embrace Of Petroleum Administrator
1ckes, He is president of PRO, and its
directors are Crowley and the Secre-
taries of State, War and the Navy.
The transactions of this agency are
shrouded in secrecy that is almost i'm
penetrable. Straws floating in the wind
indicated for weeks that the Govern
ment proposed taking strong hand in
the development of Saudi Arabia,
either as a stockholder or financial
hacker. Ickes went on record with a
promise that everything possible would
be done to increase production and re-
flning capacity in the Middle East and
it is now stated that construction of q
refinery will begin soon
printed by special ARRANGEMENT with the
81. Louis Post-Dlspatch.)