History With the discovery of a vast amount of crude oil under Lake Maracaibo, but unable to send it to market because the channel into Lake Maracaibo was too shallow to allow oceangoing oil tankers to enter the lake, Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company, who held the lease on a large area of Lake Maracaibo, incorporated Lago Oil & Transshipment Lake tankersto bring the crude oil from Lake Maracaibo to Aruba , where it was stored ashore in large tanks ; and then later loaded onto larger oceangoing tankers and taken to the United States for refining into finished petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, Bunker C and heating oil. In 1938, Standard Oil of New Jersey obtained a contract to supply Britain with 100 octane aviation gasoline. However, because of the isolationism that was prevalent in the United States (and which indeed resulted in the US staying neutral in WWII, until the end of 1941), the contract stated that the product had to be produced outside the United States. Because Aruba was under Dutch control, the Lago refinery became an important asset by providing a place outside the United States where aviation gasoline could be produced without legal and international problems. Thus, the size of the Lago refinery expanded long before the United States entered World War II. Wartime With the United States entry into World War II in 1942  the demand for Aviation gasoline further increased and considerable expansion was done at the Lago Refinery soon after that. With this expansion, Lago became one of the largest refineries in the world, only bested by Royal Dutch Shell refinery on Dutch-owned Curaçao, and a major producer of petroleum products for the Allied war efforts. The importance of the Lago refinery was well known to the German High Command and on February 16, 1942 the Lago refinery was attacked by the German Submarine U-156. The submarine's deck gun exploded due to mistakes by the German deck gunner, and the refinery was not damaged. However, three of the lake tankers that carried the crude oil from Lago Maracaibo were torpedoed.
History With the discovery of a vast amount of crude oil under Lake Maracaibo, but unable to send it to market because the channel into Lake Maracaibo was too shallow to allow oceangoing oil tankers to enter the lake, Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company, who held the lease on a large area of Lake Maracaibo, incorporated Lago Oil & Transshipment Co. The purpose of that company was to run lake tankers, to bring crude oil from Lake Maracaibo to Aruba . There, the oil was stored ashore in large tanks , later loaded onto larger oceangoing tankers and taken to the United States for refining into finished petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, Bunker C and heating oil. In 1938, Standard Oil of New Jersey obtained a contract to supply Britain with 100 octane aviation gasoline. However, because of the isolationism that was prevalent in the United States (and which indeed resulted in the US staying neutral in WWII, until the end of 1941), the contract stated that the product had to be produced outside the United States. Because Aruba was under Dutch control, the Lago refinery became an important asset by providing a place outside the United States where aviation gasoline could be produced without legal and international problems. Thus, the size of that refinery expanded long before the United States entered World War II. Wartime With the United States entry into World War II in 1942 , the demand for Aviation gasoline further increased and considerable expansion was done at the Lago Refinery soon after that. With this expansion, Lago became one of the largest refineries in the world, only bested by Royal Dutch Shell refinery on Dutch-owned Curaçao, and a major producer of petroleum products for the Allied war efforts. The importance of the Lago refinery was well known to the German High Command and on February 16, 1942 the site was attacked by the German Submarine U-156. The submarine's deck gun exploded due to mistakes by the German deck gunner, and the refinery was not damaged. However, three of the lake tankers that carried crude oil from Lago Maracaibo were torpedoed.
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