GERMAN OIL RESOURCES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 20, 21 December 1944, Page 5

GERMAN OIL RESOURCES

STOCKS FAR FROM EXHAUSTED.

(Special Correspondent.) LONDON, Dec. 19. After overrunning the oilfields of Galicia and Rumania the Russian armies now stand before the town of NagyKamisza, on the outskirts of Hungary's principal oilfields, says the Economist. Germany has already lost 67 per cent, of her crude oil resources, and the loss of Hungary would bring the figure to 74 per cent. More than two-thirds of her remaining reserves are at Zistersdorf, only 31 miles from Vienna. Meanwhile the Allied bombing forces in the west have for months past made Germany's synthetic oil plants their chief target. Will the resu'lt be that, at long last, after so many false hopes and false predictions on the Allied sido, the Germans will really run out of oil. Estimates must of course be tentative, but the answer is almost certainly' that now, as in earlier years, the Germans may be gravely inconvenienced but are not defeated by tho Allied offensive on oil. INCREASING PRODUCTION. With Austria and Germany intact, the Germqns will still be producing about 2,300,000 tons of crude oil, compared with 609,000 tons in 1938. The increase has been due to vast development in the centralised exploring and drilling of' new resources. If figures for synthetic oil are added the German total for 1944 perhaps reaches 6,000,000 tons, though bombing may in fact have reduced the output even below this figure. Some stocks have been destroyed by bombing, but it would be wrong to conclude that the Germans are carrying no stocks. Meanwhile, in 1943 and 1944 more vehicles have been transferred for military purposes. The series of great retreats has also relieved some of the strain. It would therefore be unsafe to assume that the minimum amount of fuel and lubricating oil necessary to keep tanks moving, planes flying, and submarines diving will not be forthcoming for another six months. Germany's tremendous losses of natural oil have undoubtedly brought her nearer the edge of collapse. But past experience shows that the Allies always underestimate how much room there is still left for balancing on that edge. Referring to the Germans' air effort, a correspondent on the Western Front savs that to keep up their activity of Sunday and Monday they need 630,000 gallons of petrol weekly. They cannot, because of Allied attacks against their dumps, airfields and oil factories, use this amount for any length of time.