Different German Oil Strategy

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somua33
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Different German Oil Strategy

#1

Post by somua33 » 19 Mar 2018, 22:54

Japan with a much smaller economy had an approximately 6 million ton strategic oil reserve.

During the depression, oil was selling extremely cheap. I believe as little as 25 cents a barrel (about $1.75 million a ton if my math is correct).

My understanding is that a coal to oil plant cost about $50 million. What if the Germans used those resources to accumulate a strategic oil reserve of say 30 million tons?

It would be a huge steel, coal and manpower saving. Coal and the manpower needed to mine it were ongoing expenses as well.

Although in our timeline Germany had a shortage of foreign exchange, that was in part from her coal conversion strategy. Germany made many things that were in demand on the world market. My family is from old Mexico, I know how much they valued German products. I believe it could have come up with the cash (or in deep depression, barter)

thaddeus_c
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#2

Post by thaddeus_c » 20 Mar 2018, 05:30

I always make the point that even if they wanted to convert coal to oil (fuel) there were cheaper ways. build some percentage of their fleet as coal fired and converted more vehicles (earlier) to wood gas (a misnomer as the devices could burn almost anything from wood to coal to peat.)

with these savings, then buy more oil on world market and it would have lasted much longer.


ljadw
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#3

Post by ljadw » 20 Mar 2018, 14:16

somua33 wrote:Japan with a much smaller economy had an approximately 6 million ton strategic oil reserve.

During the depression, oil was selling extremely cheap. I believe as little as 25 cents a barrel (about $1.75 million a ton if my math is correct).

My understanding is that a coal to oil plant cost about $50 million. What if the Germans used those resources to accumulate a strategic oil reserve of say 30 million tons?

It would be a huge steel, coal and manpower saving. Coal and the manpower needed to mine it were ongoing expenses as well.

Although in our timeline Germany had a shortage of foreign exchange, that was in part from her coal conversion strategy. Germany made many things that were in demand on the world market. My family is from old Mexico, I know how much they valued German products. I believe it could have come up with the cash (or in deep depression, barter)
Germany imported between 1933-1939 28,3 million ton of oil, produced itself 3,3 million ton of crude and 5,1 million ton of synthetic = 36,7 million, but it consumed also a lot of oil (some 6 million ton in 1938) to make an increase of its economy possible ).At the start of the war the reserves of oil were only 1,3 million ton . Thus to have a reserve of 30 million, Germany would need to import 30 million more oil in some 6 years,which means an additional 5 million a year :in 1938 Germany imported 5 million ton of oil, where would it get the additional 5 million? Where would it get the needed number of tankers ?

And most important : WHY would Germany need an additional 30 million ton of oil in 1939, as therre was no shortage for the WM in 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, even in 1943 : if in the summer of 1943 the Germans could launch Citadel, this means that there was no oil shortage .

somua33
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#4

Post by somua33 » 20 Mar 2018, 19:25

I bet tanker service was very cheap and abundant during the depression (along with most everything else if you had a little cash).

If you are planning a war, it's self evident why you would want a big stock pile of oil before it starts. Converting oil from coal is horrendously expensive in resources. All that coal used could have powered European industry to a number of possible effects.

ljadw
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#5

Post by ljadw » 20 Mar 2018, 20:39

somua33 wrote:I bet tanker service was very cheap and abundant during the depression (along with most everything else if you had a little cash).

If you are planning a war, it's self evident why you would want a big stock pile of oil before it starts. Converting oil from coal is horrendously expensive in resources. All that coal used could have powered European industry to a number of possible effects.
1) Less synthetic oil does not mean more imported oil : to import oil,Germany needed $ or £ ;for synthetic oil it needed RM

Thus the price of synthetic oil was no problem

2) Germany imported between 1933 and 1939 some 30 million ton of oil, it could never import 60 million ton ,because it had not the needed $:to pay the additional oil imports with machine (tools ) is not a solution, because the firms who produced oil wanted $ or £ , not machine tools : what could Exxon do with machine tools from Germany ?

3 ) Barter , even if possible ,would be refused by the oil producing countries /firms, because they could buy everything that Germany had in the US and it would be cheaper (no transport costs )

4 ) Germany did not plan a world war, even not a local war : the decision to invade Poland was taken only in april 1939 .

5) The existing amount of oil that was available was sufficient to defeat France, for the Battle of Britain, the Uboat war, the invasion of the SU , the advance to the Caucasus and the Wolga .


US controlled 70 % of the world oil production and between 33/38 they were Germany's first import source : 3,5 million ton,but they demanded $ as pay and without more $, Germany would not get more oil .

It's as simple as that : no oil producing country/ firm would accept RM or machine tools . Germany imported some 2 million ton of oil from Mexico, not more, because it did not have more $ .

ljadw
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#6

Post by ljadw » 20 Mar 2018, 20:43

somua33 wrote:

My understanding is that a coal to oil plant cost about $50 million.

This is not correct : the price was 125 million of Reichsmark, which is the equivalent of $ 50 million , but the plant was not paid in $ .

thaddeus_c
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#7

Post by thaddeus_c » 21 Mar 2018, 23:48

in War for Oil the figure of 8m tonnes was mentioned for a reserve, so 56m barrels costing 356m RMs (for comparison they started the war with 15m barrels)

my suggestion(s) as per previous post would be producer gas vehicles, some large percentage of fleet using coal-fired boilers, and pre-war stockpiling of fuel.

the synthetic fuel program grew from 10m barrels in 1938 to 36m barrels in 1943, the delays in building plants was overall shortages of steel, and of course they shortchanged allies on coal deliveries because they needed coal themselves.

(one benefit of storing oil in salt mines, not subject to bombing like the synthetic plants were. also to say they had enough fuel is misinformed, the Italians were critically short of fuel for their fleet)

Lil Pepe
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#8

Post by Lil Pepe » 08 Apr 2018, 10:17

Hitler was full of wishful thinking and did not think he would be in a war with USA or England any time soon, possibly never, and no war with russians until 1945 or so.

Germany also did not suffer the same issues with oil as Japan, which mostly had them because it had to ship every single item via the ocean and also had a huge surface fleet.

Germany did have a big problem with high octane gas, but the obvious solution there was to move to jet engines, which they eventually did.

gracie4241
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#9

Post by gracie4241 » 06 Aug 2018, 17:30

The USSBS reported that the german strategic reserve of oil(though small by western standards) was at or near a wartime peak in April 1944- in part because when they took over Italy in late 43 they found the Italiens had hidden hundreds of thousands of tons of oil provided by Germany for their fleet, but unused. It was the large scale air attacks -belatedly- on the synthetic oil refineries in May 1944, that rapidly eroded german fuel availability .This also calls into question the german lunge into the Caucasus which divided their forces and hopelessly over-extended their frontage leading proximately to the Stalingrad catastrophy . Germany would have been better served by being content to DEPRIVE Stalin of these resources(including food as the North Caucasus was the 2nd largest agricultural producer) rather than vainly attempting to ACQUIRE them by sealing it off from the rest of the USSR.It was also more doable

thaddeus_c
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#10

Post by thaddeus_c » 14 Aug 2018, 00:20

gracie4241 wrote:
06 Aug 2018, 17:30
The USSBS reported that the german strategic reserve of oil(though small by western standards) was at or near a wartime peak in April 1944- in part because when they took over Italy in late 43 they found the Italiens had hidden hundreds of thousands of tons of oil provided by Germany for their fleet, but unused. It was the large scale air attacks -belatedly- on the synthetic oil refineries in May 1944, that rapidly eroded german fuel availability .This also calls into question the german lunge into the Caucasus which divided their forces and hopelessly over-extended their frontage leading proximately to the Stalingrad catastrophy . Germany would have been better served by being content to DEPRIVE Stalin of these resources(including food as the North Caucasus was the 2nd largest agricultural producer) rather than vainly attempting to ACQUIRE them by sealing it off from the rest of the USSR.It was also more doable
not a big fan of either German synthetic program (as structured) OR invasion of USSR however if they proceeded with both a decent plan would be to capture coal producing regions of Ukraine and ship output back via the Black Sea and Danube. this has the additional benefit of positioning them to block traffic from Caucasus.

Paul Lakowski
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#11

Post by Paul Lakowski » 14 Aug 2018, 07:18

German had zero plans for wars against the world, that was Hitler's delusions. All "TASKS FOR THE WEHRMACHT" did in 1928- was to set out to a plan to defend Germany against a combined Franco- Polish attack ,and still have a reasonable chance of winning the wider 'European war'. This involved the mobilisation of up to 85 + 44 divisions followed by two years of continuous warfare, enabled by stockpiling 1 years munitions plus another years resources stockpiled to build the follow on years munitions. After this period it was planned that the economy would be mobilized for 'total war' .

Needless to say this never happened since Hitler hijacked these plans in 1936 to enable his FOUR YEAR PLAN, to wage his war on Europe , with a "limited war economy".

Nazi plans for oil storage built tanks of 2 million ton capacity buried in the ground by 1939 growing to 6 million tons by 1943. However they actually had 2.3 million tons of Wehrmacht storage tanks in 1939- but only reached 3.2 million tons storage tanks by 1943, due to lack of resources.

The needed oil storage facilities and oil could be produced by diverting resources from the WEST WALL through the 1930s. Historically these amounted to 3 billion RM plus > 10 million tons concrete and 1.7 million tons of steel with an annual work force of ~ 200,000.

1582 million RM + 1.433 million tons steel = production of 2.31 million tons of synthetic fuel & 28,000 workers
574 Million RM + 5 million tons concrete + 175,000 tons steel with 21,000 workers = 1,600,000 oil storage.
548 million RM = 92,000 tons FH /NC* armor < 50,000 workers
296 million RM = 1.08 million tons oil.

* [2254,000kg Ni/Cr= > 25,600 hot sections for Jumo-004A JET ENGINE]

ljadw
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#12

Post by ljadw » 14 Aug 2018, 12:05

And what would be the benefit of this for Germany ?

ljadw
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#13

Post by ljadw » 14 Aug 2018, 12:07

thaddeus_c wrote:
14 Aug 2018, 00:20
gracie4241 wrote:
06 Aug 2018, 17:30
The USSBS reported that the german strategic reserve of oil(though small by western standards) was at or near a wartime peak in April 1944- in part because when they took over Italy in late 43 they found the Italiens had hidden hundreds of thousands of tons of oil provided by Germany for their fleet, but unused. It was the large scale air attacks -belatedly- on the synthetic oil refineries in May 1944, that rapidly eroded german fuel availability .This also calls into question the german lunge into the Caucasus which divided their forces and hopelessly over-extended their frontage leading proximately to the Stalingrad catastrophy . Germany would have been better served by being content to DEPRIVE Stalin of these resources(including food as the North Caucasus was the 2nd largest agricultural producer) rather than vainly attempting to ACQUIRE them by sealing it off from the rest of the USSR.It was also more doable
not a big fan of either German synthetic program (as structured) OR invasion of USSR however if they proceeded with both a decent plan would be to capture coal producing regions of Ukraine and ship output back via the Black Sea and Danube. this has the additional benefit of positioning them to block traffic from Caucasus.
What would do Germany with all this coal ?

thaddeus_c
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#14

Post by thaddeus_c » 15 Aug 2018, 01:44

ljadw wrote:
14 Aug 2018, 12:07
thaddeus_c wrote:
14 Aug 2018, 00:20
gracie4241 wrote:
06 Aug 2018, 17:30
The USSBS reported that the german strategic reserve of oil(though small by western standards) was at or near a wartime peak in April 1944- in part because when they took over Italy in late 43 they found the Italiens had hidden hundreds of thousands of tons of oil provided by Germany for their fleet, but unused. It was the large scale air attacks -belatedly- on the synthetic oil refineries in May 1944, that rapidly eroded german fuel availability .This also calls into question the german lunge into the Caucasus which divided their forces and hopelessly over-extended their frontage leading proximately to the Stalingrad catastrophy . Germany would have been better served by being content to DEPRIVE Stalin of these resources(including food as the North Caucasus was the 2nd largest agricultural producer) rather than vainly attempting to ACQUIRE them by sealing it off from the rest of the USSR.It was also more doable
not a big fan of either German synthetic program (as structured) OR invasion of USSR however if they proceeded with both a decent plan would be to capture coal producing regions of Ukraine and ship output back via the Black Sea and Danube. this has the additional benefit of positioning them to block traffic from Caucasus.
What would do Germany with all this coal ?
they were short of coal for all the barter arrangements they had struck, also as feedstock for their synthetic program.

am not an advocate of invading the USSR however plunging into the Caucasus was really too far, better to try and hold coal reserves and grain producing regions of Ukraine, with the Black Sea under their control it would at least be possible to transport to Western Europe, whereas any captured oil almost certainly impossible.

Paul Lakowski
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Re: Different German Oil Strategy

#15

Post by Paul Lakowski » 15 Aug 2018, 03:10

ljadw wrote:
14 Aug 2018, 12:05
And what would be the benefit of this for Germany ?

Double or triple the fuel reserves would allow for much larger and farther reaching mobile operations each year- lasting longer. Greater strategic flexibility with critical strategic alloys allows early jet deployment along with the greater requirement for special fuel . Greater supply of armor allows doubling AFV program along with the needed fuel reserves.

This still leaves an elementary fortification program to "protect" Germany against enemy aggression.

BTW COAL was needed for synthetic fuel conversion/production.

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