Could the Soviets have satisfied Imperial Japan's oil needs?

Could the Soviets supply Japan with oil?

  • They could do it before Operation Barbarossa but not afterwards

    Votes: 7 25.0%
  • Even before Barbarossa they didn't have enough because they were selling to Germany under M-R Pact

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • They could have provided Japan with enough oil even after Barbarossa.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • They would only have enough if both Barbarossa and M-R Pact were avoided

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • They wouldn't have enough oil even without Barbarossa or M-R

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • They didn't have the logistical capacity to transport oil to the Japanese

    Votes: 18 64.3%

  • Total voters
    28

BigBlueBox

Banned
I'm not asking why they would want to sell oil to Japan if the Americans wouldn't sell it to them, but rather if they could provide enough oil.
 
Not after Barbarosa, it wants US Lend-Lease. It isn't going to get it if it pisses the US off by selling oil to Japan. Stalin knows this so won't do it.
 
So how is Oil from Baku supposed to get to Japan?

USSR doesn't have that many Oil Tankers that can make the journey.

During WWII, over 70% of Soviet Oil was from the Baku area. After Barbarossa, most of the rail link were cut, and they didn't have enough oiltankers to move all that oil by sea.

So they came up with a novel idea, use storage tanks that held oil on land, on the Black Sea instead.

So they took several of those tanks, lashed then together with steel cable, and towed them across the Black Sea with tugboats.

Worked, as the Baku Crude was a light enough grade it was buoyant on seawater.

Those won't work to get Oil to Japan.

The USSR doesn't have enough locomotives and tank cars to move it the long distance across the TSRR, or the congestion problem, as the TSRR wasn't completely doubletracked yet as of 1941, even with Stalin having the Gulag inmates working on this from the mid '30s onwards
 
as the TSRR wasn't completely doubletracked yet as of 1941, even with Stalin having the Gulag inmates working on this from the mid '30s onwards

While you are correct the Soviets probably don't have the requisite number of locomotives and tank cars to transport to Japan without compromising their ability to move fuel around domestically, this specific section is wrong: the double-tracking of the TS-RR between it's start at Chelyabinsk and Omsk was completed towards the end of WW1 and the double-tracking east of Omsk to Vladivostock was finished in 1939.

During WWII, over 70% of Soviet Oil was from the Baku area. After Barbarossa, most of the rail link were cut, and they didn't have enough oiltankers to move all that oil by sea.

So they came up with a novel idea, use storage tanks that held oil on land, on the Black Sea instead.

So they took several of those tanks, lashed then together with steel cable, and towed them across the Black Sea with tugboats.

Worked, as the Baku Crude was a light enough grade it was buoyant on seawater.

More of a terminological quibble, but I think your confusing the Caspian and Black Seas.
 
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There was oil production in northern Sakhalin, started when Japan occupied the area after the Russian Revolutions. Japan ceded control of the territory to the USSR in the mid-1920s (under pressure from the US!); part of the deal was that Japan would get some of the oil going forward. This oil delivery to Japan was unaffected by the US-led embargo; in fact it continued right up to the Soviet declaration of war in 1945.
 
As others have said once the US starts LL to the Soviets they're liable to be pressured to not try and help the Japanese avoid US sanctions at least to a point.

I believe one of the petroleum products that Japan was most dependent on was lighter crude for higher octane airplane fuel. I believe the Soviets post Barbossa might not have enough light sweet crude to export.
 
Don't think that the USA would do much, Soviets can rightfully say they want to keep Japan happy to avoid a two front war and the USA aren't giving Lend Lease to help the Soviets, they're giving it to help the British. At no point did the USA like the Soviets.

The real issue is as others have said the Soviet transportation system is simply unable to sustain trade with Japan, Communist China and supply their own needs in Siberia. As such the USA has nothing to worry about. Even after the neutrality pact trade was very minor between the two nations.
 
There would be SOME capacity on the Trans-Siberian: all those trains departing Vladivostok with LL supplies eventually need to get back for another trip, and in this return journey they could be carrying oil
 
There was oil production in northern Sakhalin, started when Japan occupied the area after the Russian Revolutions. Japan ceded control of the territory to the USSR in the mid-1920s (under pressure from the US!); part of the deal was that Japan would get some of the oil going forward. This oil delivery to Japan was unaffected by the US-led embargo; in fact it continued right up to the Soviet declaration of war in 1945.

seem to recall one of the Admirals being unhappy they were not going to seize all of Sakhalin? (IIRC there was also some suspicions about Soviet accounting for the production figures?)

their annual requirement hovered around 30m barrels, expected to double during wartime, they had an estimated two years of reserves (?)

the Soviet production on Sakhalin was approx. 3.5m barrels, but development lagged and they lacked refinery capacity, something the Japanese did have. (the Soviets were resorting to open pits to store oil, so there is a question of how much oil was actually on Sakhalin also?)
 
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