WI: More Reich Oil Imports

[Derek Pullem]

The oil in Libya is much closer and under Italian
So you need a POD control where the Italians find the oil early.

Matzen +Schoonebeek could have been found and developed earlier (ironically the anschluss probably delayed the discovery of Matzen). Mittelplatte could have been found and developed at a stretch - together at peak they could produce close to 5 million tonnes per year.

But the chances of all being found and developed is vanishingly small.

 

[thaddeus]

The table below shows that Romania's peak interwar production was 8.5 million tons in 1936, but the maximum produced 1940-44 was 5.7 million tons in 1940. Production did not return to 1936 levels until 1952. However, production was 10 million tons in 1955 and was between 12 and 13 million tons for most of the 1960s.

Would it have been simpler to get more oil from Romania, be it by fair means or foul?

my speculation is always for an invasion of Romania instead of the USSR, the argument against this is always they needed the Romanian troops for an invasion of USSR (kind of a circular argument), the other reason for not invading is potential sabotage of the oilfields (but this applies even more so to the Soviet fields)

the other action they could have taken is earlier conversion of vehicles to the producer gas apparatus, an awkward vehicle to be sure but it could use coal, wood, peat, anything really. they saved millions of barrels of oil after 1942 using them.

 

[Asp]

IIRC from reading the United States Strategic Bombing Survey the oil in Austria and Germany wasn't suitable for aviation fuel. If that is correct the Germans will still have to develop a large synthetic oil industry to provide aviation fuel for the Luftwaffe. Therefore, there won't be any more coal to trade for more Romanian oil.

The oil that Germany and Austria produced IOTL was very waxy, which made it useful for lubricants and such but unsuitable for aviation fuel. IIRC there was an industrial process that could alter it into usable fuel but it was very intensive and Germany only had like four refineries that could do it. Matzen, though, had suitable fuel, it just wasn’t discovered until four years after the war.

I don't know whose production you are referring to.

I meant Romania’s, sorry.

The problem of obtaining oil from Iraq or via Spain is similar to getting more oil from Romania. That is, they have to pay for it.

That assumes that the UK and US governments would allow it.

AFIAK the Turks didn't supply any raw materials to the Germans because the UK and US outbid them. I suspect that the UK and US would use the same tactic to prevent Germany from buying oil from Iraq in a TL where the Rashid Ali coup didn't happen.

As others have explained it wasn't possible to smuggle oil through Spain.

Paying for it isn’t the issue, the Nazis could do that in gold if it absolutely came down to it. They had a huge amount that they’d looted from all over Europe, particularly Austria and Czechoslovakia. IOTL, the Reichsbank still had more than 300 tons when Germany surrendered, more than at the beginning of the war!

And as they did with the USSR and Romania, I’m sure they could find other things of value on top of that.

Spain I concede on, but the part about Turkey is actually incorrect, they did provide quite a lot of chromium and other materials to the Reich. The English in that is a bit clunky because it's a translation of a Turkish-German Phd candidate's thesis, but it's a good source. Partly that happened because of economics/incompetent diplomacy (the British, French, and U.S. didn't offer good enough terms to make it worth their while not to sell to Berlin), but it was also geopolitical. Turkey really didn't want to see Communism in general and the USSR in particular become ascendant in the Balkans, the Soviet presence in northern Iran after the invasion didn't help, and they really really didn't like it when Stalin brought up renegotiating the Montreux Treaty at the Tehran Conference (they increased chrome deliveries to the Reich after that). Right up until the end they were hoping for something less than Germany's unconditional surrender. They also bought a lot of military equipment from the them (their Air Force operated the Fw-190 for instance) and they were negotiating to send German armaments to Rashid Ali when the British invaded and his regime collapsed. So I think they'd be willing to serve as a transit point if Ali's government had lasted longer.

I'd imagine Romania's, given you referred to production not returning to 1936 levels until 1952?

If @Asp did mean Romania an important reason would be the Allied bombing.

Yeah, I did. I'm sure WAllied bombing reduced production late in the war, but didn't the first serious WAllied raids against Ploesti and such not happen until August of 1943? What explains production levels from 1939 until then not being able to come anywhere close to 1936 levels?

The oil in Libya is much closer and under Italian
So you need a POD control where the Italians find the oil early.

That’s easy enough to manage, but the problem is that there’s no way the Royal Navy wouldn’t crush that straight off. The Regia Marina is not going to beat them. I guess if Italy stayed neutral in the war and sold to Germany that’s a somewhat more interesting POD, but they would still get crushed without the Italian troops on the eastern front. Plus there’s a decent chance Italy staying out would be enough to make France fight on, which causes its own problems for Germany.

Matzen +Schoonebeek could have been found and developed earlier (ironically the anschluss probably delayed the discovery of Matzen). Mittelplatte could have been found and developed at a stretch - together at peak they could produce close to 5 million tonnes per year.

But the chances of all being found and developed is vanishingly small.

The problem with Schoonebeek is that like most Northern European oil it was really waxy and the Germans couldn't really refine it into what they needed. I think Mittelplatte being discovered is ASB. Drilling for oil offshore in was REALLY in its infancy at this point (it was a watershed achievement in 1937 when pure oil drilled down a mile off the Gulf of Mexico to tap reserves there in 14 feet of water). Mittelplatte is multiples miles off the North Sea coast (real rough water) and more than a mile and a half under the sea floor. I don’t see it happening.

Also how did the Anschluss delay the discovery of Matzen? Curious about that.

my speculation is always for an invasion of Romania instead of the USSR, the argument against this is always they needed the Romanian troops for an invasion of USSR (kind of a circular argument), the other reason for not invading is potential sabotage of the oilfields (but this applies even more so to the Soviet fields)

the other action they could have taken is earlier conversion of vehicles to the producer gas apparatus, an awkward vehicle to be sure but it could use coal, wood, peat, anything really. they saved millions of barrels of oil after 1942 using them.

Probably easier to just get more coal to pay with.

And yeah, good point about the producer gas apparatus.

 

[Derek Pullem]

The oil that Germany and Austria produced IOTL was very waxy, which made it useful for lubricants and such but unsuitable for aviation fuel. IIRC there was an industrial process that could alter it into usable fuel but it was very intensive and Germany only had like four refineries that could do it. Matzen, though, had suitable fuel, it just wasn’t discovered until four years after the war.



I meant Romania’s, sorry.



Paying for it isn’t the issue, the Nazis could do that in gold if it absolutely came down to it. They had a huge amount that they’d looted from all over Europe, particularly Austria and Czechoslovakia. IOTL, the Reichsbank still had more than 300 tons when Germany surrendered, more than at the beginning of the war!

And as they did with the USSR and Romania, I’m sure they could find other things of value on top of that.

Spain I concede on, but the part about Turkey is actually incorrect, they did provide quite a lot of chromium and other materials to the Reich. The English in that is a bit clunky because it's a translation of a Turkish-German Phd candidate's thesis, but it's a good source. Partly that happened because of economics/incompetent diplomacy (the British, French, and U.S. didn't offer good enough terms to make it worth their while not to sell to Berlin), but it was also geopolitical. Turkey really didn't want to see Communism in general and the USSR in particular become ascendant in the Balkans, the Soviet presence in northern Iran after the invasion didn't help, and they really really didn't like it when Stalin brought up renegotiating the Montreux Treaty at the Tehran Conference (they increased chrome deliveries to the Reich after that). Right up until the end they were hoping for something less than Germany's unconditional surrender. They also bought a lot of military equipment from the them (their Air Force operated the Fw-190 for instance) and they were negotiating to send German armaments to Rashid Ali when the British invaded and his regime collapsed. So I think they'd be willing to serve as a transit point if Ali's government had lasted longer.




Yeah, I did. I'm sure WAllied bombing reduced production late in the war, but didn't the first serious WAllied raids against Ploesti and such not happen until August of 1943? What explains production levels from 1939 until then not being able to come anywhere close to 1936 levels?



That’s easy enough to manage, but the problem is that there’s no way the Royal Navy wouldn’t crush that straight off. The Regia Marina is not going to beat them. I guess if Italy stayed neutral in the war and sold to Germany that’s a somewhat more interesting POD, but they would still get crushed without the Italian troops on the eastern front. Plus there’s a decent chance Italy staying out would be enough to make France fight on, which causes its own problems for Germany.



The problem with Schoonebeek is that like most Northern European oil it was really waxy and the Germans couldn't really refine it into what they needed. I think Mittelplatte being discovered is ASB. Drilling for oil offshore in was REALLY in its infancy at this point (it was a watershed achievement in 1937 when pure oil drilled down a mile off the Gulf of Mexico to tap reserves there in 14 feet of water). Mittelplatte is multiples miles off the North Sea coast (real rough water) and more than a mile and a half under the sea floor. I don’t see it happening.

Also how did the Anschluss delay the discovery of Matzen? Curious about that.



Probably easier to just get more coal to pay with.

And yeah, good point about the producer gas apparatus.

Schoonebeek - is waxy but is not really that much of a problem to refien given the right investment. Remember Germany is developing oil from coal at this time - I think upgrading a few refineries is well within their capability (btw - I worked at Schoonebeek for two years in the early 90's)
Matzen - Socony-Vacuum led the early oil exploration activities.in Austria and the first commercial oil production - but as part of the Anschluss all exploration licenses were revoked and returned to the state. It's speculative but another three years exploration by Socony might have discovered Matzen
Mittelplate - the ASB part is drilling it in the first place - but the development post find in perfectly feasible. It needs a manmade island either via a coffer dam (35 ft) or something similar to the Maunsell forts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunsell_Forts built by the UK at the same time (which also offer a potential protection solution against bombing)

 

[Asp]

Schoonebeek - is waxy but is not really that much of a problem to refien given the right investment. Remember Germany is developing oil from coal at this time - I think upgrading a few refineries is well within their capability (btw - I worked at Schoonebeek for two years in the early 90's)
Matzen - Socony-Vacuum led the early oil exploration activities.in Austria and the first commercial oil production - but as part of the Anschluss all exploration licenses were revoked and returned to the state. It's speculative but another three years exploration by Socony might have discovered Matzen
Mittelplate - the ASB part is drilling it in the first place - but the development post find in perfectly feasible. It needs a manmade island either via a coffer dam (35 ft) or something similar to the Maunsell forts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunsell_Forts built by the UK at the same time (which also offer a potential protection solution against bombing)

Huh. It was a significant issue for them IOTL. I honestly don't think they ever were able to use their own crude to make avgas throughout the entire war. Matzen is sweeter crude, right?

Interesting, didn't know that.

The drilling part is still insurmountable, though, and a permanent coffer dam in the North Sea would be pretty tough to set up. The British were also very good at cracking German marine fortifications (Dambusters, St. Nazaire Raid, etc.).

 

[BELFAST]

That’s easy enough to manage, but the problem is that there’s no way the Royal Navy wouldn’t crush that straight off. The Regia Marina is not going to beat them. I guess if Italy stayed neutral in the war and sold to Germany that’s a somewhat more interesting POD, but they would still get crushed without the Italian troops on the eastern front. Plus there’s a decent chance Italy staying out would be enough to make France fight on, which causes its own problems for Germany.

Regia Marina's big problem was lack of fuel to put to sea. Their own oil gives them a chance to defend the sea lanes to north Africa.
Italy is neutral still leave the royal navy blockading Italy and limiting the oil imports to the pre-war level or whatever the British decide the Italian need for their own needs only.

Oil in Libya is very high quilty so much better potential to make high octane fuel. This means more powerful engines in German piston aircraft.
With a source of high quilty oil in Libya, Germany could delay the invasion of the soviet union and use the resources to defend the oil in Libya and the supply routes across the med.
A lot more German aircraft in the med and Malta becomes a much more important target. Germany has the fuel to continue to train pilots to a high standard. So the German airforce has a better chance of defending German air space from allied bombing.
Italy is now Germany's most important ally.
Rommel in North Africa will not be short of fuel.
if the fuel continues to arrive from North Africa, Germany could wait for the Soviets to invade and fight a defensive war on the eastern front with relative short supply lines and plenty of fuel.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Huh. It was a significant issue for them IOTL. I honestly don't think they ever were able to use their own crude to make avgas throughout the entire war. Matzen is sweeter crude, right?

Interesting, didn't know that.

The drilling part is still insurmountable, though, and a permanent coffer dam in the North Sea would be pretty tough to set up. The British were also very good at cracking German marine fortifications (Dambusters, St. Nazaire Raid, etc.).

It's not that they couldn't but that the key process units (hydrogenation) were all tied up producing oil from coal which was available locally. If the oil was available locally they could use that as an alternative feedstock and produce more useful products as well as av gas than using coal.

So Schoonebeek would not allow them to make more av gas but will make more pool petrol and/or diesel.

 

[Asp]

Regia Marina's big problem was lack of fuel to put to sea. Their own oil gives them a chance to defend the sea lanes to north Africa.
Italy is neutral still leave the royal navy blockading Italy and limiting the oil imports to the pre-war level or whatever the British decide the Italian need for their own needs only.

Oil in Libya is very high quilty so much better potential to make high octane fuel. This means more powerful engines in German piston aircraft.
With a source of high quilty oil in Libya, Germany could delay the invasion of the soviet union and use the resources to defend the oil in Libya and the supply routes across the med.
A lot more German aircraft in the med and Malta becomes a much more important target. Germany has the fuel to continue to train pilots to a high standard. So the German airforce has a better chance of defending German air space from allied bombing.
Italy is now Germany's most important ally.
Rommel in North Africa will not be short of fuel.
if the fuel continues to arrive from North Africa, Germany could wait for the Soviets to invade and fight a defensive war on the eastern front with relative short supply lines and plenty of fuel.

Italy in WWII had six battleships, no battlecruisers, and no carriers to control the Mediterranean with. The British had five King George V Class alone, plus five Queen Elizabeth class, five Revenge class, and two Nelson class. Those were just the proper battleships, never mind the battlecruisers. And that leaves out the French Navy, which I think will continue to fight with the Allies if Italy doesn’t enter the war immediately. Even if that goes as IOTL, the British by themselves will crush the Regia Marina. If the Italians discover the Libyan oil in like the late 1920s and are raking in cash that Mussolini uses to build new ships, Britain will answer with a building war that they cannot win. The Italians cannot match the Royal Navy. They just can’t.

Also, Stalin was never planning to attack the Reich. Simply wasn’t going to happen.

It's not that they couldn't but that the key process units (hydrogenation) were all tied up producing oil from coal which was available locally. If the oil was available locally they could use that as an alternative feedstock and produce more useful products as well as av gas than using coal.

So Schoonebeek would not allow them to make more av gas but will make more pool petrol and/or diesel.

Ah ok that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

According to the table I put in Post 10 Romania produce 8.5 million tons of crude petroleum in 1936, which declined to 6.1 million tons in 1939 and 5.2 million tons in 1943.

So production in 1939 was 2.4 million tons less than 1936 and production in 1943 was 3.3 million tons less than 1936.

Yeah, I did. I'm sure WAllied bombing reduced production late in the war, but didn't the first serious WAllied raids against Ploesti and such not happen until August of 1943? What explains production levels from 1939 until then not being able to come anywhere close to 1936 levels?

I don't know. However, you may have answered this question in Post 12.

Yeah, IIRC they could have bought like 1-2 million more tons of oil from Romania but they didn't make the deliveries of natural resources they were supposed to (mostly coal), so Antonescu gave them much less than they expected.

That is, the decline in production many have been because the Germans didn't have anything the Romanians wanted to trade for the extra 2½ to 3 million tons of oil that they were capable of producing.

However, some of the reduction in Romania's production between 1936 and 1943 was compensated for by increases in production elsewhere.

• Austria's production increased from 7,348 tons in 1936 to one million tons in 1943.
• Hungary's production increased from nothing in 1936 to 800,000 tons in 1943.
• The oilfields in eastern Poland were captured in the second half of 1941. They produced 373,000 tons in 1942 and 395,000 tons in 1944.

There is also the increase in Germany's synthetic oil production over this period, which I don't have any figures for.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

As the topic is about the Axis getting some oil from Iraq it's useful to know how much oil that country was capable of producing in the first half of the 1940s.

According to the table below (which is from the same source as the table in Post 10) Iraq's maximum annual production between 1938 and 1945 was 4.3 million tons. IIRC the combined capacity of the oil pipelines from Kirkuk to Haifa and Tripoli (the one in Lebanon) was 4 million tons a year. IIRC Haifa and Tripoli were also where the refineries were.

 

[TDM]

The oil in Libya is much closer and under Italian control.
So you need a POD control where the Italians find the oil early.

Problem is can Italy secure or even just protect it's Libyan oil fields? Especially in a ATL were they're known about

 

[HexWargamer]

Also, Stalin was never planning to attack the Reich. Simply wasn’t going to happen.

Well, it could be 'set up' .. (I'm guessing that having 20,000 tanks, even T26's, means Stalin is confident he can impose his will by military force should it come to that)

You can assume Stalin is going to invade Poland even without the Nazi-Soviet Pact. After that you have Nazi's and Soviets sharing a common border .. plus there's the Danziog / Polish Corridor issue all over again (but with Hitler demanding Stalin hand it over) .. Easy enough to assume a Soviet grab of Estonia, Lativa and Lithuania ends with the Red Army rolling on into East Prussia to eliminate the Polish Corridor issue .. and bingo you have your war ...

On the other hand, you can have Stalin, who sees plots everywhere, convince himself that he has to grab Rumania before Hitler does. Hitler sees his oil supplies under thrteat .. and then gets into a war when the Red Army rolls on into Hungary ...

 

[BELFAST]

Italy in WWII had six battleships, no battlecruisers, and no carriers to control the Mediterranean with. The British had five King George V Class alone, plus five Queen Elizabeth class, five Revenge class, and two Nelson class. Those were just the proper battleships, never mind the battlecruisers. And that leaves out the French Navy, which I think will continue to fight with the Allies if Italy doesn’t enter the war immediately. Even if that goes as IOTL, the British by themselves will crush the Regia Marina. If the Italians discover the Libyan oil in like the late 1920s and are raking in cash that Mussolini uses to build new ships, Britain will answer with a building war that they cannot win. The Italians cannot match the Royal Navy. They just can’t.

Also, Stalin was never planning to attack the Reich. Simply wasn’t going to happen.



Ah ok that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

You maybe be right the Italians cannot control themed on their own, but with increasing numbers of Germany aircraft based in Italy and North Africa they could control the trade routes to the oil fields.
Italy would not make much money for oil as it was very cheap before the war.
They do save hard currency needed to pay for imported oil.
A neutral Italy would have to limit its oil imports to its' own needs, or the royal navy will blockade oil imports.
OTL the only county the British could not stop exporting oil to Germany was the Soviet Union.
Oil in Lybia makes the control of north Africa more important than taking the oil fields of Baku. So no big pressure for Germany to invade the Soviet Union.

 

[TDM]

You maybe be right the Italians cannot control themed on their own, but with increasing numbers of Germany aircraft based in Italy and North Africa they could control the trade routes to the oil fields.
Italy would not make much money for oil as it was very cheap before the war.
They do save hard currency needed to pay for imported oil.
A neutral Italy would have to limit its oil imports to its' own needs, or the royal navy will blockade oil imports.
OTL the only county the British could not stop exporting oil to Germany was the Soviet Union.
Oil in Lybia makes the control of north Africa more important than taking the oil fields of Baku. So no big pressure for Germany to invade the Soviet Union.

Thing is if the Axis have t devote so much resources to keep the Libyan oil safe (which would include needing fuel to protect oil to do that), you risk not breaking even in terms of resources and just making N.Africa a larger theatre and it's a theatre that doesn't necessarily play to Axis strengths, and it's also Germany's primary goal.

 

[BELFAST]

Thing is if the Axis have t devote so much resources to keep the Libyan oil safe (which would include needing fuel to protect oil to do that), you risk not breaking even in terms of resources and just making N.Africa a larger theatre and it's a theatre that doesn't necessarily play to Axis strengths, and it's also Germany's primary goal.

A lot easier to get oil from Lybia than Baku or Iraq.
Taking the Suez canal forces British shipping to go around South Africa.

The oil in Lybia could make the med the centre of the conflict to no battle of Britian. The main air battle r=eraly in the war would be around Malta and the sea lanes to Lybia.

 

[CV12Hornet]

I didn’t know about that, thanks for the link. I knew about the measures they took regarding tungsten, but that’s new to me.



Thanks!



The USSR though was huge and was shameless about lying in its economic growth reports. It also has rail and sea links to the Middle East. If they wanted to purchase and reexport a couple million tons of oil, could they do it?

No, the USSR was a net oil exporter in this era. Any major imports of oil are going to grab attention, and not a good way.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

So I’ve been reading up on the Nazi oil issues during the war recently and one thing I wondered about is whether it would be possible to alleviate the issue, at least to a degree, with increased oil exports from the Middle East through Turkey and perhaps the USSR before Barbarossa.

This is silly. All of the oil fields in the Middle East were owned and operated by the Allies.

Iraq is the obvious location because it has a rail link to Germany and a serious core of anti-allied military leaders during the war. My idea was that Rashid Ali’s coup doesn’t happen (maybe France fights on and they aren’t emboldened by Syria going Vichy). He remains as PM and continues exerting pro-Axis influence, including selling oil to the Axis through intermediaries in Turkey and the USSR.

Rashid Ali came to power only because Rommel's offensive in Libya gave the impression that the Axis would drive into the Middle East; the German onslaught into Greece reinforced this. But if Syria had declared for Free France, Iraq would have been completely isolated and I doubt that the "Golden Square" would dare to move against Britain.

In which case Iraq (and its oil) remains firmly under the British thumb.

 

[BELFAST]

No, the USSR was a net oil exporter in this era. Any major imports of oil are going to grab attention, and not a good way.

I am not sure it would make much difference. Oil was cheap at the time and there were lots being found around the world at the time.
Germany and Japan were some of the places oil was not being found in large amounts at the time
The need for both to import oil had a major effect on their ability to fight a war when their oil imports could be blockaded by theie enemies.

 

[Father Maryland]

The problem of obtaining oil from Iraq or via Spain is similar to getting more oil from Romania. That is, they have to pay for it.

That assumes that the UK and US governments would allow it.

AFIAK the Turks didn't supply any raw materials to the Germans because the UK and US outbid them. I suspect that the UK and US would use the same tactic to prevent Germany from buying oil from Iraq in a TL where the Rashid Ali coup didn't happen.

As others have explained it wasn't possible to smuggle oil through Spain.

I vaguely remember the Germans obtaining much of their tungsten supply for much of the war from the Turks.

 

[BELFAST]

I vaguely remember the Germans obtaining much of their tungsten supply for much of the war from the Turks.

I think that was chrome in Turkey and the tungsten came from Norway and Spain.

Wolfram Crisis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The World War Two Allied Economic Warfare: The Case of Turkish Chrome Sales

https://d-nb.info/994443129/34