SOVIET RUSSIA AND WORLD’S OIL RESOURCES

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 March 1949, Page 6

SOVIET RUSSIA AND WORLD’S OIL RESOURCES

the London Correspondent of the

By

Sydney Morning Herald.

With all the publicity given to the industrial and agricultural achievements of the Soviet Union under the first post-war five-year plan, curiously little has been said about oil. During the last months of 1948 there have been triumphant announcements about the progress of the plan in many of its most important aspects: iron, steel, and grain have all equalled their pre-war production level; the Moscow factories are to fulfil their plan in three and a half years, the Leningrad factories will finish theirs in four years. And so on. But about oil, upon which the whole economy of the Soviet Union especially when it is considered as a military Power, may be said to depend, there has been hardly a word. , Suffered From War The reason for this is clear if one refers back to the original terms of the current plan, which is now about to enter its fourth year. The most striking aspect of these was the extremely modest quota set for the oil industry and the tacit admission that this industry suffered more serverely from the war than vzas commonly supposed. , . , , In 1938 oil production had reached a figure of just over 30 million tons a year. The target for 1950 is some 35 million tons a year, and a great part of this total is to be supplied by newlydeveloped fields. For example, in 1938 the Baku oilfields provided 22 million out of the total 30 million tons, but in 1950 Baku will supply only 17 million tons out of 35 million. Of the remaining 18 million tons five are to come from the Grozny-Maikop fields in the Caucasus, which will mean their restoration to the pre-war level, while the other 13 million tons are to come mainly from the Ural-Volga oilfields, Turkmenia, the Emba region north oi the Caspian, and Kazakhstan areas which in 1938 produced only three million tons between them. The reasons for the decline m the Baku production are not clear. Baku, unlike Maikop and Grozny, was never a theatre of war, and there should be extensive reserves. The development of the oilfields between the Volga and the Urals, to the north and east of the Caspian (Emba and Krasnodar) and deep down, in Kazakhstan, marks the beginning of the exploitation of immense reserves still virtually untapped, and, at the same time, a development of tne Kremlin’s policy to build up new industries deep in the interior of Asiatic Russia.

Not The Whole Reason War damage is not the whole for Russia’s tardy development of her oil supplies, in face of her urgent need fcr them The third five-year plan, which was interrupted by the war, provided for a spectacular expansion from 30 million tons in 1938 to 49 million tons in 1942. . . . That plan was never finished, but as far as is known production m 1941, when Hitler put a temporary end to Soviet planning, had not yet climbed beyond 32.5 million tons, and it is to be doubted whether it would haves exceeded 35 million tons in. 1942 had there been no war. „ Such a failure meant a breakdown oi the plan so radical as to suggest that the planners had a totally inadequate idea of the difficulties involved in efficient oil extraction. The oil was there, but it simply could not be got. Part of the trouble was undoubtedly due to transport difficulties; the socalled Volga-Ural oilfields, for example cover an area bigger than France, and the pipeline problem generally was cicute But most of the trouble came from lack of skilled technicians and, above all from inferior drilling machinery. If the Soviet Union could import both technicians and machinery fro* l } America there is no doubt at all that her oil production would leap sharply and in a very short time to half as much again as its present level. This in turn would be of the greatest possible help in the development of transport and other basic industries. But from all appearances the Kremlin decided some time ago that it would not call on American assistance, even if it were offered. Modest Output The 1950 quota of 35 million tons, fixed in 1946 before the spectacular deterioration of Russo-American relations. represented just about what the Russians could manage for themselves, while Stalin’s call for 60 million tons by the end of the third or fourth postwar plan—i.e., between 1960 and 1965 is a great deal more realistic than the pre-war demand of a leap from 30 to 49 million tons in five years. Meanwhile, in estimating the value to Russia ol this comparatively modest output (modest in. a country so vast and with resources so tremendous), it is worth while bearing in mind that Soviet consumption for peace-time needs was estimated at some 25 million tons a year in 1940, as against the America 150 million tons a year—a very great proportion of which is, by Russian standards, frittered away in private motoring and a thousand other non-productive activities.

Each ton of oil in the Soviet Union, that is to say, is made to do essential work and nothing but essential work.