The title says all, what if italian oil companies found a huge quantity of oil in lybia during the late 1920s? would this butterfly aways the battle of El Alamein in world war 2?
The title says all, what if italian oil companies found a huge quantity of oil in lybia during the late 1920s? would this butterfly aways the battle of El Alamein in world war 2?
They did look for it in 1940, after someone spotted signs of it in 1935. The problem is that it would be very difficult to exploit the oil fields with the equipment that then existed. Don't forget that they're in the middle of the Sahara.
Even if they had found it how would they ship it up to Italy/Germany.
The Moose really didn't play well with US companies at the time, even made Henry Ford give up opening up Ford of Italy: the only place he failed to get a factory(and resulting market share)
For Oil at this time, all the Oil Majors had to deal with Hughes Tool Company, ran by Howard Hughes, French, British and Dutch.
It made him one of the richest men in the world, from his ironclad patents on drilling bits.
Soviets tried to copy his bits, but failed. Hughes had better security on things than the Manhattan Project.
And to get at that deep Libyan Oil, you would need a lot of them.
I have my doubts on Bennie agreeing to Hughes terms.
They did look for it in 1940, after someone spotted signs of it in 1935. The problem is that it would be very difficult to exploit the oil fields with the equipment that then existed. Don't forget that they're in the middle of the Sahara.
Could you provide a source for these OTL explorations.
Timing wise were they linked to the prospect of war with Britain?
The title says all, what if Italian oil companies found a huge quantity of oil in lybia during the late 1920s? would this butterfly away the battle of El Alamein in world war 2?
They did look for it in 1940, after someone spotted signs of it in 1935. The problem is that it would be very difficult to exploit the oil fields with the equipment that then existed. Don't forget that they're in the middle of the Sahara.
The Moose really didn't play well with US companies at the time, even made Henry Ford give up opening up Ford of Italy: the only place he failed to get a factory(and resulting market share)
For Oil at this time, all the Oil Majors had to deal with Hughes Tool Company, ran by Howard Hughes, French, British and Dutch.
It made him one of the richest men in the world, from his ironclad patents on drilling bits.
Soviets tried to copy his bits, but failed. Hughes had better security on things than the Manhattan Project.
And to get at that deep Libyan Oil, you would need a lot of them.
I have my doubts on Bennie agreeing to Hughes terms.
When this question has come up before the answer was that they wouldn't have been able to exploit it due to the oil being too far underground for the drilling technology of the day. On the other hand as necessity is the mother of invention the Italians would have done their best to develop the technology, but whether that effort would have produced the technology in time is another matter.Even if they had found it how would they ship it up to Italy/Germany.
... the El Alamein battles as we know them would be butterflied away. However, it might be because Mussolini doesn't become an ally of Hitler. IIRC Mussolini opposed Hitler initially. For example he defended Austria during the Dollffus Affair and did not begin his drift into an alliance with Hitler until 1935. The catalyst was the Abyssinian War. The British stopped exporting coal to Italy as part of the trade sanctions package and Hitler replied by sending German coal to Italy. However, ITTL the Italians would have stopped importing British coal by 1935 because it had converted its economy to run off oil. Therefore no need for German coal to make up for the British refusing to supply their own. However, the Spanish Civil War still happens and the two countries might still become allies because of that.
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wonder if the Abyssinian War might not occur either? they had somewhat grandiose plans for Italian East Africa which might be focused here on Libya?
If Italy could get enough oil and iron ore out of Libya by 1935 to make itself self-sufficient that would save foreign currency that they could be used to build up stockpiles of the other strategic raw materials.Finally in the light of Mussolini's evident eagerness to go to war against France and sometimes even France and Great Britain combined, it is worth noting that Italy remained embarrassingly depended upon imported fertiliser, coal, oil, scrap iron, rubber, copper and other vital raw materials - 80 per cent of which had to come past Gibraltar or Suez, and much of which was carried in British ships. It was typical of the regime that no contingency plan had been prepared in the event of these imports ceasing and that a policy of stockpiling such strategic raw materials was out of the question, since by the late 1930s Italy didn't even have the foreign currency to cover its current needs. This chronic shortage also helps to explain why the Italians also could not afford to pay for the German machine tools so vital for the production of the modern aircraft, tanks, guns and ships which were being developed in the years after 1935 or so.
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/libyanoil.htm
It seems to have been literal happenstance. And they weren't able to seriously look and exploit what they found until around 1959, when they found an economically viable well that paid for the cost of the drilling operations.
Extract from Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, by Paul Kennedy,
If Italy could get enough oil and iron ore out of Libya by 1935 to make itself self-sufficient that would save foreign currency that they could be used to build up stockpiles of the other strategic raw materials.
Can synthetic rubber and fertiliser be made from Libya's oil? If they could be that would save a bit more foreign currency that could be spent elsewhere.
I guess that serious Italian preparation for a war like OTL somehow could do most of the trick. The Germans managed to fairly rapidly ramp up production from fairly deep Austrian Oil fields in 1940's.
When this question has come up before the answer was that they wouldn't have been able to exploit it due to the oil being too far underground for the drilling technology of the day. On the other hand as necessity is the mother of invention the Italians would have done their best to develop the technology, but whether that effort would have produced the technology in time is another matter.
If Italy did develop the necessary drilling technology in time they would have to build pipelines to take the oil to the coast. That shoud not be a problem because IOTL the Tran-Arabian Pipeline from Mosul in Iraq to the Mediterranean port of Haifa in Palestine was built in the first half of the 1930s. There are also large iron ore reserves in the middle of Libya so while we're at discovering the oil earlier lets discover that in the 1920s too and in the first half of the 1930s build a railway to take it to the coast. They would also have to expand the existing Libyan ports or build new ones, but finding the merchant shipping shouldn't be a problem because the oil (and AFAIK) iron ore came by sea anyway and the shorter distance from Libya to Italy might mean that the transportation cost is reduced. And provided they can by hook or crook develop the necessary drilling technology finding the money would be the main stumbling block to getting the oil wells and iron ore mines into production in time to butterfly away the Battle of El Alamein.
IIRC the Libyan oil was discovered in 1958. If ITTL it is brought forward to at the latest 1928 the oil could be flowing in 1935 provided they can buy the drills from Howard Hughes or develop the necessary technology themselves and of course find the money to pay for it.
If they can do the above then the El Alamein battles as we know them would be butterflied away. However, it might be because Mussolini doesn't become an ally of Hitler. IIRC Mussolini opposed Hitler initially. For example he defended Austria during the Dollffus Affair and did not begin his drift into an alliance with Hitler until 1935. The catalyst was the Abyssinian War. The British stopped exporting coal to Italy as part of the trade sanctions package and Hitler replied by sending German coal to Italy. However, ITTL the Italians would have stopped importing British coal by 1935 because it had converted its economy to run off oil. Therefore no need for German coal to make up for the British refusing to supply their own. However, the Spanish Civil War still happens and the two countries might still become allies because of that.