RUSSIAN OIL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25068, 9 November 1942, Page 2

RUSSIAN OIL

The continuing German pressure in the Central Caucasus region, whereby the Grozny oil fields are threatened, with the prospect that the Nazi advance may be pushed forward as far as the Caspian Sea at Makhach Kala, is causing attention to be focussed once more on Russia's oil position. The first of the Russian oil-producing areas in the Northern Caucasus was lost when Marshal von Bock's armies overran Maikop in the early stages of the thrust which has now penetrated i to the neighbourhood of Grozny. Actually, the occupation of the Grozny district by the enemy would not cause any radical change in the Soviet’s supply position, since the Caucasian pipe-lines are no longer of any use. From the German viewpoint, the acquisition of the Maikop and Grozny fields would possess definite long-term advantages. As at Maikop, the policy of the scorched earth would be rigorously applied at Grozny before a Russian withdrawal became necessary; taut if the Germans were able to get both fields back into production in reasonable time, their joint output of nearly 4,000,000 tons would rank, in Herr Hitler’s resources, next to that of the Rumanian wells, which are believed to be yielding some five and a-half million tons a year. In the scheme of Russian supply, however, it is the Baku area that is of outstanding importance, accounting as it does for between 70 and 75 per cent, of Russia’s entire available output. The problem in the meantime, so far as Baku is affected, is not one of production, but of distribution to the great centres of Russian industry and to the army. Russian tonnage on the Caspian Sea includes a large fleet, of tankers, farsightedly constructed during recent years, and this, it is believed, would be capable of carrying the entire output of Baku. Normally the main route of the tankers would be from Baku to Astrakhan, and thence via the Volga to Stalingrad. The importance of this supply route was emphasised when the Germans put themselves astride the pipe-line from Makhach Kala to Rostov and the Black Sea bases of Novorossisk and Tuapse; and, although complete control of the Volga is still denied them, they are known to be in a position, south of Stalingrad, to interfere seriously with the Volga traffic. Shquld the Germans reach Makhach Kala, or succeed in cutting the Volga link, all tanker traffic would then have to proceed from Baku to the north-eastern Caspian port of Chapayev, whence a proportion of the Baku oil is now delivered I by pipe-line to Orsk, behind the Urals. The industrial development

of Asiatic Russia caused the construction of this pipe-line fairly recently, and its value has enormously increased since it became necessary for much, of Russia's heavy industry to be concentrated beyond the safe barrier of the Ural Mountains. Between the Urals and the Volga there is the subsidiary field known as Second Baku. Its maximum output at present is, however, set at no more than 7,000,000 tons annually, so that it does not figure significantly in relation to Russia’s total oil requirements, although it is said to be rapidly expanding under the spur of necessity. Apart from the available sources of natural supply Russian emergency stocks, built up during a period of years before the outbreak of war, and steadily added to since, are estimated to run into many millions of tons—enough, it is considered, io enable the war machine of the Soviets, military and industrial, to function for a long time, even m the improbable event, of the loss of the Baku fields to the invaders.