How long to develop oilfields in Europe during WW2

[Deleted member 1487]

We've discussed the Schoonebeek oil field on the Dutch-German border before in context of it already being operational in 1940:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=300285&highlight=schoonebeek

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoonebeek#Aardolie
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlandse_Aardolie_Maatschappij
It was able to produce about 250 million barrels out of 1 billion in place before become unprofitable from its development after world war 2. It was discovered in 1943, but was hidden and not developed until 1947.

However assuming it were discovered in 1940 after the German invasion, how long would it take to actual make productive in a serious way during the war? In 1942 supposedly the Germans were busy drilling all over the place to find more oil in Europe and as a result didn't have many men to send to Maykop to get that oilfield back into service after it was captured; assuming Schoonebeek was discovered in the meantime and the full weight of the limited Axis petroleum industry was thrown at making it operational, how long would it take to produce major amounts of oil? It seems that with the post-war 1947 start date within 2 years it was producing half of peak output and by 1950 was production 7-800,000 tons per year. It took until 1955 to peak in output at about 1.1 million tons per year and dropped off after that.

It should be noted that 1938 Germany was using 44 million barrels of oil in that year; there are 7.3 barrels per ton, which means a little more than 6 million tons of oil were used pre-war in Germany. Even 500,000 tons of oil per year, achieved within two years of Schoonebeek coming online post-war, would equal 3.65 million barrels of oil a year, which was as much as Germany was producing domestically prior to the annexation of Austria. Though this was only about 10% of synthetic oil production per year by 1943, it would have a major impact on fuel supplies, but was that actually achievable in wartime? Would an even quicker exploitation have been possible had the Axis put in all their resources into exploiting the field as quickly as possible?

Would its discovery and significant exploitation by 1942/3 have precluded the Caucasus campaign of 1942 or would the exploitation have taken too long?

Source for German oil supply details:
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1981/jul-aug/becker.htm

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_Barrels_per_metric_ton_of_crude_oil

 

[thaddeus]

think the time frame is not feasible, development time of ten years if often mentioned, maybe with priority that is cut to five years?

(of course some oil is being produced the whole time)

maybe if the full extent of the oilfield and/or the Matzen field in (present day) Austria was known it would change the calculations on invading USSR?

maybe a more limited operation?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

think the time frame is not feasible, development time of ten years if often mentioned, maybe with priority that is cut to five years?

(of course some oil is being produced the whole time)

maybe if the full extent of the oilfield and/or the Matzen field in (present day) Austria was known it would change the calculations on invading USSR?

maybe a more limited operation?

Why 10 or 5 years? What is that based on? The oil in the Netherlands is pretty shallow (~400 meters) compared to places like Libya (800) or Baku (IIRC 1000 meters). I think it wouldn't change going into the USSR, but would affect going after the Caucasus.

Its also right on the German border, right next to the Ems river.

 

[wietze]

first of all i think it would be given priority, second given that in a post war situation with a shattered economy it only took them 2 years to get it up and running. Then 2 years or even 1 year if it gets a lot of priority.
The drilling won't be the biggest issue, it is the infrastructure.
How long before they will be able to either connect schoonebeek to the rail net or lay a oil pipeline?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

first of all i think it would be given priority, second given that in a post war situation with a shattered economy it only took them 2 years to get it up and running. Then 2 years or even 1 year if it gets a lot of priority.
The drilling won't be the biggest issue, it is the infrastructure.
How long before they will be able to either connect schoonebeek to the rail net or lay a oil pipeline?

The Ems river is maybe a few dozen miles away. It can move up the river to Emden and be sent out via ship to Hamburg and down river to the Danube and Romanian oil refineries or down river to some in Southwest Germany. Schoonebeek is very close to major rail and river lines, so getting it deeply hooked in will be a matter of a year at very most IMHO, as its no more than 30 miles from major existing lines.
https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/baedeker_n_germany_1910/german_rail_1910.jpg
With 1910 rail lines its about 30-40 km from the major rail line along the Ems river;

 

[mlp]

So, have we just solved the "Nazi Germany No Oil" problem?

 

[deathscompanion1]

So, have we just solved the "Nazi Germany No Oil" problem?

Until the allies bomb it flat...

Of course the Germans weren't always stupid and Hitler was obsessed with Oil so chances are the Luftwaffe will be fighting tooth and nail to defend it.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

So, have we just solved the "Nazi Germany No Oil" problem?

Not exactly, they were producing 12 million barrels of natural oil yearly 1943 thanks to German, Austria, and Polish oilfields, not counting Romanian and Hungarian fields. Synthetic production could have 'solved' the issue with enough resources, but they were expensive and would have cost something else in the war industry. Even at 1 million tons a year, something that took about 5-7 years post-WW2 for Schoonebeek, that would have been 7.3 million barrels a year, which was about 55% of historical natural domestic production anyway; it certainly would have helped a lot, but would not have been enough on its own to solve all fuel issues, especially if it came online in 1943-4 when things were already pretty serious on all fronts and fuel was only part of the issue at play.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Until the allies bomb it flat...

Of course the Germans weren't always stupid and Hitler was obsessed with Oil so chances are the Luftwaffe will be fighting tooth and nail to defend it.

Make it a FLAK trap like Leuna, which, though damaged during the war, was never even seriously harmed during the war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuna#World_War_II

More than 19,000 of Leuna's workers were members of the air raid protection organization which operated over 600 radar-directed guns (the fire-fighting force consisted of 5,000 men and women). A total of 6,552 bomber sorties over 20 Eighth Air Force and 2 RAF attacks dropped 18,328 tons of bombs on Leuna.[9] As the most heavily defended industrial target in Europe, Leuna would become so dark from flak, German smoke pots, and exploding oil tanks that "we had no idea how close our bombs came to the target." (Tom Landry, B-17 co-pilot and later Dallas Cowboy coach). On clear days, only 29% of the bombs aimed at Leuna landed inside the plant gates; on radar raids the number dropped to 5.1%. During the first raid of the Oil Plan, 126 Leuna workers were killed. However, after defenses were increased, only 175 additional workers were killed in 21 subsequent raids. Leuna bombing from May 12, 1944 to April 5, 1945 cost the Eighth Air Force 1,280 airmen. In three separate attacks by the Eighth, 119 planes were lost and not one bomb fell on the Leuna works.[10]

Of course it was deep in Germany (Saxony-Anhalt) so was outside of escort range until 1944. But Schoonebeek would only be in P-38 range until 1944 too, though it was significantly closer. The Netherlands though had become a massive FLAK trap on its own even as late as 1945, so it would be well protected even without additional reinforcement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Netherlands_(1939–1945)#Luftwaffe

The Luftwaffe was especially interested in the Netherlands, as the country was designated to become the main area for the air force bases from which to attack Great Britain. The Germans started construction of 10 so-called Fliegerhorste, major military airports, on the day after the formal Dutch surrender, 15 May 1940. They had at least 2 or 3 hard surface runways, a dedicated railway connection, major built-up and heated repair and overhaul facilities, extensive indoor and outdoor storage spaces, and mostly housing and facilities for 2000 to 3000 men. Each Fliegerhorst also had an auxiliary and often a decoy airfield, complete with mock-up planes made from plywood. The construction work was performed by Dutch contractors and Dutch workers on a totally voluntary basis.[citation needed] The largest became Deelen Air Base, north of Arnhem (12 former German buildings at Deelen are now national monuments). Adjacent to Deelen, the large central air control bunker for Belgium and the Netherlands, Diogenes, was set up.

Within a year, the attack strategy had to be altered to a defensive operation. The ensuing air war over the Netherlands cost almost 20,000 airmen (Allied and German) their lives and 6,000 planes went down over the country - an average of 3 per day during the five years of the war.
The Netherlands turned into the first line of western air defense for Germany and its industrial heartland of the Ruhrgebiet, complete with extensive flak, sound detection installations and later radar. The first German night-hunter squadron started its operations from the Netherlands.
Some 30,000 Luftwaffe men and women were involved in the Netherlands throughout the war.[22]

The Allies were routing air raids around the Netherlands by 1943 due to the dense concentration of FLAK and fighters.

 

[PMN1]

Make it a FLAK trap like Leuna, which, though damaged during the war, was never even seriously harmed during the war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuna#World_War_II

According to Target: Hitler’s oil, Allied attacks on German oil supplies 1939-45 by Ronald C. Cooke and Roy Conyers Nesbit, during the period of these attacks, output was held down to only 9% of full capacity.

There was also a useful knock on effect - from the same book 'When the oil plants at Luena and Ludwigshaven were temporarily put out of action, Germany was deprived of 63% of its current output of nitrogen, 40% of its synthetic methanol and 65% of its synthetic rubber production.'

 

[wietze]

The Ems river is maybe a few dozen miles away. It can move up the river to Emden and be sent out via ship to Hamburg and down river to the Danube and Romanian oil refineries or down river to some in Southwest Germany. Schoonebeek is very close to major rail and river lines, so getting it deeply hooked in will be a matter of a year at very most IMHO, as its no more than 30 miles from major existing lines.
https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/baedeker_n_germany_1910/german_rail_1910.jpg
With 1910 rail lines its about 30-40 km from the major rail line along the Ems river;

totally aware of that since i live maybe 30km away from it, to the east at this time is still pretty much peatbog (moor)
topographic map of the area 1935
http://www.wildernis.eu/chart-room/?view_file=./topografische kaarten/1915-1940 topkaarten 1:50.000/23 Nieuw-Schoonebeek 1935.jpg


i know the line will get constructed, but for heavy loads, constructing is going to be a challenge. but i think it will get done in the same time the field is made operational. or they connect to the dutch railnet, they could link up to coevorden.

 

[naraic]

Why 10 or 5 years? What is that based on? The oil in the Netherlands is pretty shallow (~400 meters) compared to places like Libya (800) or Baku (IIRC 1000 meters).

The 10 years comes from someone of importance talking about libya (forget who) but it included stuff like infrastructure. Also libyan oil was as you say deeper.

 

[wietze]

The 10 years comes from someone of importance talking about libya (forget who) but it included stuff like infrastructure. Also libyan oil was as you say deeper.

did you see what wiking wrote?

It seems that with the post-war 1947 start date within 2 years it was producing half of peak output and by 1950 was production 7-800,000 tons per year. It took until 1955 to peak in output at about 1.1 million tons per year and dropped off after that.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

The 10 years comes from someone of importance talking about libya (forget who) but it included stuff like infrastructure. Also libyan oil was as you say deeper.

And far more remote. I think that 10 years including building up the ports, rail lines, stations, and living structures for the people in the middle of no where in the desert. Basically the time to build an entire modern infrastructure from scratch, rather than link in a Dutch backwater to the rest of the Dutch/German dense rail net.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

did you see what wiking wrote?

So by 1949 there was I think 4-500k tons of oil being pumped and it climbed from there until leveling off around 7-800k tons by 1950. Then it climbed from '53 until its peak in 1955-6 at over 1 million tons a year and fluctuated from there. Only about a quarter was recoverable until it became unprofitable and now is starting to reopen again.

 

[PMN1]

And far more remote. I think that 10 years including building up the ports, rail lines, stations, and living structures for the people in the middle of no where in the desert. Basically the time to build an entire modern infrastructure from scratch, rather than link in a Dutch backwater to the rest of the Dutch/German dense rail net.

Needs to be 2-3 years at most for it to have any real importance, after that the infrastructure is at the mercy of imporved Allied navigation and equipment. From what i've read, the RAF attacks on oil had a better effect (for the Allies) on German oil production raid for raid that US attacks primarily due the the larger bombs being used so the infrastructure is coming on line just as the RAF has effective navigation and HC bombs.

 

[wietze]

So by 1949 there was I think 4-500k tons of oil being pumped and it climbed from there until leveling off around 7-800k tons by 1950. Then it climbed from '53 until its peak in 1955-6 at over 1 million tons a year and fluctuated from there. Only about a quarter was recoverable until it became unprofitable and now is starting to reopen again.

so it really depends on how much wells you can drill

dutch rail map from 1949

as you can see, only need to put in a few kilometers of rail to connect at coevorden

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Needs to be 2-3 years at most for it to have any real importance, after that the infrastructure is at the mercy of imporved Allied navigation and equipment. From what i've read, the RAF attacks on oil had a better effect (for the Allies) on German oil production raid for raid that US attacks primarily due the the larger bombs being used so the infrastructure is coming on line just as the RAF has effective navigation and HC bombs.

By day or night? From what I can tell the RAF only started after D-day when it stopped bombing V-1 sites and supporting the invasion. And of course got fighters on the continent to extend range. Spitfire didn't have the range to escort to that part of Europe until they had bases on the continent, then they went after the Ruhr oil facilities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_Campaign_of_World_War_II

In late summer 1944 the Allies began using reconnaissance photo information to time bombing with the resumption of production at a facility. Even with the weather limitations: "This was the big breakthrough...a plant would be wounded...by successive attacks on its electrical grid—its nervous system—and on its gas and water mains." (author Donald Miller).[5]:320 However, due to bad fall and winter weather, a "far greater tonnage" was expended on Transportation Plan targets than oil targets.[23] In January 1945, the priority of oil targets was lowered.

Of itself, German industry was not significantly affected by attacks on oil targets as coal was its primary source of energy. And in its analysis of strategic bombing as a whole the USSBS identified the consequences of the breakdown of transportation resulting from attacks against transportation targets as "probably greater than any other single factor" in the final collapse of the German economy.[32]

It has been stated to have been "effective immediately, and decisive within less than a year."[34] Luftwaffe Field Marshal Erhard Milch, referring to the consequences of the Oil Campaign, claimed that "The British left us with deep and bleeding wounds, but the Americans stabbed us in the heart."[35]

The worst of it was from September 1944 on, prior was a relatively minor part (June-August).

The efficiency of the bombing was lacking. Working from German records for certain sites, the USSBS determined that on average 87% of Allied bombs fell outside the factory perimeter and that only a few percent struck plant or equipment inside the boundary. The USAAF could put 26% of their bombing within the factories in good bombing conditions, 12% when using a mix of visual and instruments but only 5% when it had to use instrument-only bombing techniques; and 80% of their tonnage was delivered under partly or fully instrument conditions. The RAF averaged 16% inside the factory. Bomber Command's efforts against oil were more efficient in some regards - although delivering a smaller total tonnage it did so from 2/3 base area. The USSBS believed that Bomber Command's heavy bombs - 4,000 lb "cookies" - were more effective than an equivalent weight of smaller bombs. Both RAF and USAAF dropped a large number of bombs on oil targets that failed to explode: 19% and 12% respectively.[37]

Basically until after D-day the threat to Schoonebeek would be relatively manageable. After there were fighter bases on the continent there would be problems. So from July 1940-July 1944 it would be effectively defended, but thereafter a major target. Still it would be very costly to attack, as Leuna was and the Ruhr was.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

According to Target: Hitler’s oil, Allied attacks on German oil supplies 1939-45 by Ronald C. Cooke and Roy Conyers Nesbit, during the period of these attacks, output was held down to only 9% of full capacity.

There was also a useful knock on effect - from the same book 'When the oil plants at Luena and Ludwigshaven were temporarily put out of action, Germany was deprived of 63% of its current output of nitrogen, 40% of its synthetic methanol and 65% of its synthetic rubber production.'

It averaged 9% of capacity, which included periods above that and apparently none at all.

The synthetic oil plants were brought back into partial production and in remarkably short time. But unlike the ball-bearing plants, as soon as they were brought back they were attacked again. The story of Leuna is illustrative. Leuna was the largest of the synthetic plants and protected by a highly effective smoke screen and the heaviest flak concentration in Europe. Air crews viewed a mission to Leuna as the most dangerous and difficult assignment of the air war. Leuna was hit on May 12 and put out of production. However, investigation of plant records and interrogation of Leuna's officials established that a force of several thousand men had it in partial operation in about 10 days. It was again hit on May 28 but resumed partial production on June 3 and reached 75 percent of capacity in early July. It was hit again on July 7 and again shut down but production started 2 days later and reached 53 percent of capacity on July 19. An attack on July 20 shut the plant down again but only for three days; by July 27 production was back to 35 percent of capacity. Attacks on July 28 and 29 closed the plant and further attacks on August 24, September 11, September 13, September 28 and October 7 kept it closed down. However, Leuna got started again on October 14 and although production was interrupted by a small raid on November 2, it reached 28 percent of capacity by November 20. Although there were 6 more heavy attacks in November and December (largely ineffective because of adverse weather), production was brought up to 15 percent of capacity in January and was maintained at that level until nearly the end of the war. From the first attack to the end, production at Leuna averaged 9 percent of capacity. There were 22 attacks on Leuna, 20 by the Eighth Air Force and 2 by the RAF. Due to the urgency of keeping this plant out of production, many of these missions mere dispatched in difficult bombing weather. Consequently, the order of bombing accuracy on Leuna was not high as compared with other targets. To win the battle with Leuna a total of 6,552 bomber sorties were flown against the plant, 18,328 tons of bombs were dropped and an entire year was required.

Clearly the previous quote I used was misleading and the bombing was much more effective, but it was only from May 1944 on. I think the same situation would hold over Schoonebeek, but the problem would be either/or for the Allies; either Schoonebeek or Leuna to really shut them down and Schoonebeek would be closer and easier to hit, so in fact would act as a bomb magnet for Leuna, protecting it by soaking up Allied bombs instead. Either way German oil output would be far higher as a result until the transportation plan picked up and shuts down the coal supply.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

so it really depends on how much wells you can drill

dutch rail map from 1949

as you can see, only need to put in a few kilometers of rail to connect at coevorden

Yeah, so how quickly can they drill and get that equipment in place, given that it would get priority for German exploitation from the end of 1940 on? Would it be extracting 500,000 tons or more by 1942? Perhaps 1 million tons by 1944? If so that would be a massive boost to the Axis war effort, especially for flight training of new pilots, as they were severely curtailed due to demands at the front. It would be pretty much immune until May 1944 after Big Week finally silences the LW, but with more fuel for training from 1941 on, it might be a longer, tougher process.

Being a less concentrated target too compared to the industrial plant at Leuna, it would be harder to knock out, as the US found why trying to shut down Romanian out pumps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_Campaign_of_World_War_II_(Chronology)
They went after refineries, so they might not go after Schoonebeek if there aren't refineries nearby, instead focusing on the rail infrastructure; that would get really nasty given the air defenses of the Netherlands due to the need to defend the nearby Ruhr and it being a common transit route. Add in more air defenses due to the importance of the oil production and its going to get really ugly and potentially the primary place for Big Week to demolish.