RUSSIA'S OIL FUEL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 254, 27 October 1942, Page 2

RUSSIA'S OIL FUEL

FAR-SIGHTED PLANS SECOND BAKU IN URALS LONDON. The main Caucasian oilfields are situated around three places Maikop and Grozny, which by an unfortunate oversight were placed by Providence on the northern slopes of the Caucasus; and Baku, right down in the south-east in an extremely inaccessible position. Of these, Baku is incomparably the most important. lam going to quote very few figures because t.h° s e which are known are out of date and those which are not known are a military secret. But if the Germans could occupy and exploit Baku they would have no more oil worries throughout the war. They could cross Asia on the output of these wells.

Happily they are a long way from Baku. But Maikop and Grozny have also a very substantial output and a whole winter's working would probably provide enough fuel for a spring campaign, says Paul Winterton in a dispatch from Moscow to the News Chronicle. Now let us consider the thrust to the Volga. This great river is not the only means of transporting oil from Baku to the great Soviet northern armies and industries and the tractors which mean so much now in Russian agriculture, but it is the only one of any importance. If traffic on the Volga were closed either by the occupation of Stalingrad or by a drive through to Astrakhan what would Russia do about oil for herself? Huge New Field of Supply Well, first of all she has reserves. Naturally nobody knows how great they are. But as long ago as the second half of 1940 Russia was producing oil at the colossal rate of 35,000,000 tons a year—far greater than ever before—and since then she has been sinking new wells and developing new fields at a feverish pace. Since 1939 her exports of oil have been negligible. It seems a reasonable conclusion, therefore, that somewhere or other in the heart of Russia there are some pretty big oil stocks—stocks which have been greatly added to since the Volga ice broke in April. But it is not only reserves on which Russia would be able to depend if Baku were cut off. There is a "second Baku," not officially demarcated, but lying roughly between the Middle Volga and the Urals. A few years ago this great batch of oilfields was virtually undeveloped, but since 1939 development and production have been expanding at a great pace. Millions of tons a year are now being pumped up in this region, and every day the output grows. Women are playing a big part in keeping production figures well above the plan at the present time. Nor is this all. When you come to examine the map of oil deposits in Russia you find there is oil all over the place. There is a very useful field, for instance, at Emba, northeast of the Caspian. There are other oilfields in Middle Asia and Siberia and up in the Arctic. German Miscalculations

Some of these fields have little importance, either because they are still largely undeveloped or because they are very remote from this theatre of war. But taking them by and large it would be a profound mistake to imagine that because their aggregate output was insignificant four or five years ago it is still insignificant to-dav. The Germans undoubtedly believe r X C ?T I Cl \ipple the offensive power ot the Russian Army and the productive power of Russian agriculture by cutting the Volga. But this time last year they believed they could destroy Russia's fighting power by seizing or threatening her main industrial districts.

In the event it turned out that uussia was saved by her alternative areas of supply augmented bv evacuated machinery. Do the Germans imagine that the Russians have been less far-seeing over oil?