SOVIET PREPARES

Grey River Argus, 14 March 1940, Page 7

SOVIET PREPARES

ON NEW FRONT The Oil Issue BATUM DEFENCE MEASURES (Received March 13, 9.5 p.m.) ANKARA, March 13. Reports from the Caucasus state that the Russians are evacuating ail of their women and children from the city of Batum on the Black Sea, the: head point of the Caspian oil pipe line. Batum is within the range ol the Turkish artillery on the Eastern Turkish frontier. The Oil Issue AMERICAN’S VIEW. GERMANY’S SUPPLY SHORT (Received March 13, 5.5 p.m.) RUGBY, March 13. Though experts on military questions, like professional economists, are rarely found all to agree on any single point in any highly controversial subject which they have chosen to study, it is clear that all are agreed on the 1 vital importance which oil supplies must play in the conduct of modern warfare. The position of Britain’s oil supplies was summarised in the current supply of the Petroleum Press Service, a reliable journal of the petroleum industry, which clearly proved it to be highly satisfactory. As regards the position of the German. supplies of oil, facts contained in “This Fascinating Oil Business,” by Mr Max Ball, a former president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, is considered in London to be most illuminating. This study reveals that, even the lowest authoritative estimate of Germany’s 1940 wartime oil requirements was ninety million barrels, but. if the fighting became active the author believes that Germany’s needs would increase to some hundred and fortytwo millions of barrels, or two and a half times her peace time needs, which is generally agreed to be the normal increase of a country’s wartime over its peace-time requirements. German oil production in 1938, including that for her occupied territories, was nineteen million barrels. These, figures, her newer oilfields and synthetic processes, Mr Bail points out, can scarcely raise beyond twenty-five million barrels. Germany has only, in the author’s view, sufficient oil in storage to prevent a shortage for perhaps nearly a year. Mr Ball points out, in this connection, that even if Germany obtained all of Roumania’s total export surplus of oil, this only amounts to some eighteen million barrels yearly. Russia’s export ’ surplus was only some six and a-half million barrels in 1938.

Mr Ball concluded: “For Germany to win, she must enc. the war in the near future, or strike, in her home territory, new oilfields much more productive than any she has found, or she must gain free access to oceanborne oil supplies, or must prevent the ocean-borne oil supplies of France and Britain from reaching those countries. Up to the moment, Germany has shown no convincing evidence of an ability to do any of these things.” Turkey Ready TO FIGHT SOVIET. (Received March 14 1.10 a.m.) ANKARA, March 13: The Turkish Supreme Council has concluded a meeting. It announced that the situation was entirely satisfactory. LONDON, March 13. The Associated Press Ankara correspondent says: The Turkish authorises declare that Turkey is ready to pit her utmost military strength against Russia if the Soviet, after its Finnish triumph, should attempt to gain any concessions affecting t.ie Dardanelles.