OIL IN WARTIME

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 44, 20 August 1938, Page 8

OIL IN WARTIME

SUPPLIES FOR BRITAIN

POSITION NOW SECURE

Gresvfc Britain has solved the problem of getting a sufficient supply of oil in wartime, it is claimed, writes Sam Brewer from London to the "Chicago Tribune." Now the chief problem is finding safe storage for an adequate 'reserve. How to get oil to England in wartime has been one of the British Empire's thorniest defence problems." Now they claim to be in a better position than any European country except Russia. j Efforts to find natural oil supplies |in England and Scotland have failed !up to the present, but through British-owned companies nearly onei fourth of the world supply is controlled - at its source. BIG TANKER FLEET READY. The only sources likely to be cut off by war, say the British, are Rumania, Russia, and Irak (Mesopotamia). These three countries provide ! 14.6 per cent, of the peacetime supply, but it is believed that lack could easily be overcome by speeding up other British-owned sources. The British tanker fleet has a deadweight carrying capacity of 4,330,000 tons, equalled only by the 4,400,000 tons of American tankers. As long as the Navy can keep the sea routes open—and that is as long as the Empire could survive anyway— they estimate that those ships can give them an ample supply of oil. Imports in 1936 amounted to 2,546,000 tons. Of that, 38.3 per cent, came from Venezuela and the Dutch West I:/"ties; 18.7 per cent, from Iran (Persia); 10.2 per cent, from the United States. Rumania supplied 6.7 per cent, Mexico 6.1, Irak 5.1, Peru and Russia each 2.8, and other countries outside the Empire 3.7 per cent. MAY LOSE 1 PER CENT. British Dominions and colonies supplied only 5.6 per cent, of the total and most of that came from Trinidad. To foreigners, the belief that anything like a normal supply could be kept up from all those countries, let alone anything more than the normal supply, seems a bit optimistic, but the British insist it could. They estimate that under the convoy system losses j would amount to only 1 per cent, a year. Even allowing for the fact that I all oil from Persia would have to f make the long trip around Africa, they say there would be plenty of ships to supply the 15,000,000 tons a year they estimate as their wartime needs. Not only that, they say there would be enough tonnage available to replace all ships sunk for eight years, at the rate of 1 per cent, a year, without building new ones. The margin is said to be 2,450,000 tons. And there are vessels with a capacity of 210,000 tons already being built. Other countries are not so well off. Norway has the third largest tank fleet, with' 2,800,000 tons, Holland is fourth with 670,000, and Italy, France, Japan, and Germany follow in that order. THE USE OF PIPELINES. The three "anti-Comintern" treaty Powers—ltaly, Japan, and Germanyhave only 1,050,000 tons among them. : To cut the danger of losses from enemy commerce-raiding-, the•'- British1 plan to use pipelines, a plan itried out towards the end of the World War and reported highly successful. Oil cart then be landed at the safest ports and carried overland by. pipeline to the j point where it is needed. The plan was first used to enable the British to j land oil on the west coast of Scotland j and avoid the perils of the English Channel and the North Sea. It is now to be extended for use in a general network. Already the Admiralty is carrying out a programme for putting the great bulk of its oil reserves into safe underground storage tanks. This is too costly a- method to be used for the entire supply, and tanks on the surface of the ground are easy to see from the air even when camouflaged. Such of the oil as is not stored underground, ! therefore, is to be kept in comparaI lively small tanks in isolated sections and "so placed that even if one tank burns or blows up it cannot affect the others. s