ROUMANIAN OIL

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 September 1939, Page 12

ROUMANIAN OIL

IMPORTANCE TO REICH Germany’s economic agreement with Roumania focuses attention on the Third Reich’s most vulnerable spot in its scheme of war preparedness, says a writer in the “Yorkshire Post.” Liquid fuels for propulsion and. lubricants for greasing the bearings have become a necessity the world over. They are indispensable in peacetime aim vital under war conditions. The Third Reich’s determined efforts to decrease her dependence on foreign sources for her oil supplies have met with a partial measure of success at great financial sacrifice. The domestic output of crude petroleum has risen from 230,000. metric tons in 1932 to 550,000 tons last year. The expansion of by-product coking industry, a direct result of .Germany’s 1938 record stepl production of 23,300,000 tons, and the erection of. additional benzol recovery plants by mun,ivi,pal gasworks have increased Germany’s output of erucic benzol from 350,200 metric tons in 1035 to over .600,000 tons last year. According tp the International Hydrogenation Engineering and ,C!onipany the .capacity of the Third Reich’s hydrogeiigtion and FischerTropsch plants how working and under construction total respectively 1,900,000 and 700,000 tons. For a number of years the admixture of petrol with 10 per cent, of alcohol manufactured mainly from potatoes was compulsory, but the proportion was reduced recently to 8.5 per cent, as potatoes were needed more urgently for feeding the population. The manufacture of methanol or synthetic alcohol, on the other hand, has registered an increase. The output of light motor fuel and, to a strictly limited extent, lubricants from all domestic raw materials, reached 2,400,000 tons last year. All the time, imports of petroleum and related products have been mounting up. They rose from 4,312.957 tons (valued Rm. 230,000,000) during 1937 to 4,956,750 tons (valued Rm. 267,000,000) in 1938. Greater Germany’s 1938 exports of refined oil products totalled only 195,000 tons. She had to pay a het sum of Rm.248,000,000 for her oil imports last year. More than four-fifths of her 1938 total mineral oil came from the New World (45 per cent, from Venezuela and 24 per cent, from the United States), 9 per cent, from Roumania, 3.8 per cent, from Iran, 3.2 per cent, from the Netherlands East Indies, and 1.5 per cent, from Russia.

Germany is one of the few Great Powers whose tanker fleet is not proportionate to her imports. The tonnage of her tanker fleet totals 190,000 gross tons, and she is vitally dependent on Norwegian tankers for the transport of her supplies. The capacity of Greater Germany’s refineries amounts to 2,700,000 tons. Finally, both Austria and Czechoslovakia are "debit” areas as oil producers.

DEPENDS ON GOODWILL. In k s]iprt, tlip safety ,qf .Germap.y’s oil purchases depends pin tlje ,g66djvill of ;'tbe purveyor pquntry, .the., lands through jyhich. it Jigs to be conveyed, the countries controlling the seas it has ,to .cross, and ,the Npi’yvegjajn tanker owners. At presept .is able to satisfy, virtually the whole of her petrol or motor fuel supplies from domestic sources and has to rely for some 60 per cent, of .her peace-time needs of other petroleum products on foreign, distant and uncertain sources. Her wartime needs would be a different proposition. Herr H. Steinberger reckons that she will need at least 12.650.000 tons of oil in the first year of war. Germany therefore is anxious to have an assured source of oil supply nearer home. In. wartime the Roumanian oilfields would be of vital importance to Germany. Barring Soviet Russia, .Roumania is the largest producer of .petroleum in Europe, and, what is equally impqrtapt, she has substantial proven oil reserves undergrquhd yet to be won. Roumania’s 1938 output of crude oil totalled 6,60.0,000 .tons, and her known reserves are reckoned at 114,000,000 tons. With Turkey and Bulgaria as her allies. Germany was able to win a victory over Roumania in the . early part of the last war by executing an enveloping movement. Late in Autumn, 1916, the Allied Mission operating in concert with the Roumanian Governnient succeeded .in putting the fields put of action to prevent them from .falling into the hands of the Central Powers. A few months ,ago. Germany had plans ih hand for the establishment of a -pipeline from Roumania through Roumania and .Slovakia, via Bratislava to Vienna. Now she has become bolder. With , the annihilation of Czechoslovakia, the Carpathian system of mountains becomes a strategic factor of importance. Germany has now a strategic ascendancy .over the lands witfiin the Carpathian arc? /Unfortunately for the Third Reich, the Roumanian oilfields ,are on her .wrong side in a strategic sense. The oilbearing belt has .as its centre Ploesti. not far north of Bucharest. If Roumania were hostile to Germany and it became a necessity for Germany to seize the oilfields by force, the resulting military cam paign would be beset with great difficulties. Thanks to the anti-Comintern Pact, with‘'Hungary’s connivance Germany might succeed in overrunning Transylvania, but she would then have the task of forcing the Carpath-, ian passes into Wallachia. This would be no easy matter, especially if the Roumanian army were supported by Russian artillery and aircraft. If; on the other hand, Roumania were friendly to Germany and Russia hostile, it would be relatively easy for the Soviet Union, considering the level nature of terrain, lending itself for the passage of mechanised columns. to capture and destroy the oilwells. The Third Reich cannot afford to alienate the good will of Hungary by friendship with Roumania. Germany might be able to use the River Danube for strategic purposes, in which case she would need Yugoslavia’s consent, which may not be readily forthcoming. The attitude of Tin-key and, to a lesser extent, Bulgaria might well prove decisive. In any case, “Mitteleuropa is not going to be all beer and skittles even for the Third Reich.”