WI: Stable source of oil for Germany from Libya?

Let's just assume that a POD in the 20s has Italy extracting ample amounts of oil from the Libyan desert and shipping it to Germany by 1939. How does this impact WW2?

IMO it leads to a closer Italian-German relationship with Italy given more say-so. I could see the Barbarossa and North Africa campaigns going better, with a larger importance placed on Egypt in particular.

Sorry if mistakes, not too familiar with WW2 :p
 
The main problem, as always, is that only the Americans had a good idea of how to reach that deep - and there wasn't much belief in said oil actually lying that much deep down. Butterfly that early enough (good infrastructure isn't built in a day or two) and you've already got a fairly big POD by itself. But assuming everything else would stay the same, yeah, more attention would be given to Libya; how this would translate to Italo-German relations is hard to pin down, because Italy would then be less dependent on German help, but also be more wary of bordering UK and France.
 

hipper

Banned
Let's just assume that a POD in the 20s has Italy extracting ample amounts of oil from the Libyan desert and shipping it to Germany by 1939. How does this impact WW2?

IMO it leads to a closer Italian-German relationship with Italy given more say-so. I could see the Barbarossa and North Africa campaigns going better, with a larger importance placed on Egypt in particular.

Sorry if mistakes, not too familiar with WW2 :p

The Royal Navy does what It did historically and prevents Italy importing by sea oil in excess of its own needs

The British Goverment assesses what Italy needs without input from the Italians.

After Italy Joins the way they just sink the tankers and bomb the loading ports.

Lydian oil is a very fragile resource in WW2
 

NoMommsen

Donor
A few thoughts on making it happen :
  • the german company developing sonic exploration in the early/middle twenties stikes a deal with its texan/american customers in trading licenses : sonic exploration against know-how of deep-drilling (so they can offer other customers a 'complete-package')
  • Mussolini in middle to late twenties sets up a state company as a joint venture with said german company to look for oil in HIS desert.
  • exploration continues at the beginning of the Great Depression but though some wells are found Italy/everybody else lacks the money to fully develop these findings
  • with Hitler in power and Germanys thirst for resources the development of found oil wells pcks up with the first delivery around 1937/38

Changes to OTL :
  • MUCH more attention to Malta (early Operation Herkules ??) by the axis, esp. Italy
  • MUCH more attention to the Med ingeneral by everyone (larger british fleet there ?, larger british forces in Egypt ?, ... larger/some french force in Tunesia ??)
And prior to war :
  • better eqipped italian forces (trading oil for if not actual pieces of eqipment then technology)
  • earlier, closer ties between italy and Germany (maybe an earlier "Anschluss" of Austria ?)
... just a few thoughts.
 
The Royal Navy does what It did historically and prevents Italy importing by sea oil in excess of its own needs

The British Goverment assesses what Italy needs without input from the Italians.

After Italy Joins the way they just sink the tankers and bomb the loading ports.

Lydian oil is a very fragile resource in WW2
The way I see it though is that with the addition of a critical Axis oil supply coming in via the Mediterranean is that the sea is given a much greater importance than OTL, with a larger emphasis and effort put into securing strategic positions and eliminating potential Allied operating bases (like Egypt). It's likely IMO that we'll be seeing a 'closed Mediterranean' at least for 1940-1942. We might even see a Japan-esque entry into the war for Italy with bombings of Gibraltar, Malta and the Suez Canal.

that being said though, it's probably not that accurate since it's just speculation based off general knowledge. but i at least thing something along those lines is plausible.
 

Deleted member 1487

Italy can probably stay out of WW2 and ship Germany oil as a neutral. Having oil revenue makes Italy military stronger due to having a higher budget to spend on the military, especially the navy, to ensure that oil continued to flow. If the Allies push Italy too hard to cut oil to Germany they will find that Italy can join Germany and make their lives a lot more difficult, while making concessions to Italy will be pretty expensive to get them to stop the flow of oil. Certainly Italy will be a lot more concerned about their oil resources and probably build up defenses and infrastructure in Libya to secure it, which goes hand in hand with being able to exploit Libyan oil resources in the first place, which in turn makes it pretty difficult to invade with a well fortified border against Tunisia and Egypt with rail supply from interior ports. The Italians will have a war plan to take Malta early on at all costs due to the threat it represents to their oil supply lines. The Italians would also probably want to invade Egypt quickly if war starts because of the serious threat of British bombers against the pumping stations and oil terminals at the ports. Likely the Italians will want to avoid war, but in the event they feel pushed into it, they will fight quick and hard to shut down all threats to their Libyan oil source, which means going hard against Malta and Egypt to ensure they have a buffer to protect that resource. The Italian navy will certainly be much more active with all the oil it possibly needs to utilize it's fleet, something it lacked IOTL. I'd imagine adventures like Greece aren't an option if Italy really is paranoid about British threats to Libya, so after making an early effort to seize Malta (again assuming they opt to go to war) they will throw as much into taking Egypt as possible. Plus if they do take it quickly they can like up with Italian East Africa via the Suez and use their fleet aggressively all over.
 
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