US short of oil in 1944 ?

I read somewhere that the US was short of oil end of 1944, i think main supplier was at the time (Saudi) Aramco. What did the US do about this, since it supplied also aviation gasoline to soviets and oil to other third countries.

I think you are mistaken. The US produced most of its own oil, and imported most of the rest from Venezuela. Saudi oil only became vitally important to the -US- after the war. It was important to the UK though, IIRC, and without checking any sources.

Ed Frank

The United States was a net oil exporter in 1941, and I doubt that it ran down its reserves much if any in the subsequent three years.

Indeed, I have been assured that the U.S. rationed gasoline during WWII not to save gasoline, which was available in plenty, but to save tires, which were all but irreplacable.

all the best

Prior to the 1960s the United States was an exporter of oil. There was a fuel shortage in Europe in the fall of 1944, but that was refined oil not crude. With few exceptions oil does not come out of the ground ready to be used in a car, truck, tank or boat. (White Gas in West Texas would be one of those exceptions).

The Saudi's Aramco started after World War II. If the Saudis were producing it was through British Companies.

The United States had thousands of wells in Texas, New Mexico and California producing oil. The Oil companies were starting to explore the swamps in Louisianna and were looking at the Gulf of Mexico, both of which were exploited after World War II.

You were misinformed (cf. other posts about Texas and Venezuelan oil.) Oil in Saudi Arabia was not discovered until after WW2. During WW2 'Middle East oil' came only from Iran and Iraq.

Mexico was another major supplier (with recent expropriation no barrier to profit motive). 'American' (N&S) oil became Great Britain's principal source. Middle Eastern oil (Saudi, 'Trucial States', sheikdoms, Iraq, Iran) replaced the East Indies sources held by the Japanese, were capable of rapid production increases and supplied CBI, all of Africa inc. N.African campaigns and Eastern Med (and later some of Italian campaign through Suez).

Refinery capacity (types and amounts) and location were key players in the POL equation. AVGAS for US efforts in China (inc. eventuuak basing of B-29s) remained a critical issue. Remember, every gallon, all high octane for fighters and bombers - and return flights of transports - plus MOGAS for vehicles, had to be flown over the 'Hump' in 55gal drums by C- 47s, C-46s and B-24s/C-87s.

The US was the world's largest oil producer at this time, over half the world's production (1.4 billion barrels in 1940, 1.7 billion in 1945).

The US was a net exporter of crude oil from 1933 to 1940, and again in 1942 and 1943; a net importer in 1941, 1944, and 1945.

But in none of these years did net imports or exports of crude oil exceed 3% of US domestic production.

The US was a net exporter of refined petroleum products throughout the period (38 million barrels in 1940, 110 million barrels in 1945).

Saudi Arabia was not a major oil producer till after the war. The main sources of oil for Britain were Iraq and Iran.

Reposted in something that looks a little more like English and with the correct dates....

This may be a misinterpretation of a number of events.

1. Gasoline rationing. When rationing to conserve fuel was instituted on the US East Coast in May of 1942, it was vehemently protested, especially since Americans at that time considered unfettered access to unlimited quantities of gasoline, and unrestricted use of their automobiles, to be a God-given right. This unnerved the Roosevelt administration in its plans to introduce rationing on a nationwide basis. They serendipitiously found a way to 'back door' that program under the guise of a program based on the (real) need to conserve rubber. As it was, the political 'hot potato' rationing scheme still needed to wait until after the 1942 congressional elections before being enacted., and even then 100 congressmen (mostly from the wide-open spaces of the Western US) protested. As it was, a further scheme in 1943 to ban all 'non-essential' automobile travel crashed and burned in a barrage of semantics and never went into effect.

2. An article published in 1943 by FDR's Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, titled 'We're Running Out of Oil!!', which in stating that 'WW III will be fought with imported oil' was actually an analysis of US domestic oil reserves and a look at the need for conservation in the future. The US was at the time of the article producing over 60% of the world's oil with no reasonable expectation of being unable to continue to do so for the duration of the war.

3. Shortage of gasoline on the Western front. Despite the failure of PLUTO, there was no shortage of gasoline in the ETO, it was just that it was in the wrong place (Normandy) in late summer of 1944. Transportation problems (the Allies had moved 260 'logistic planning days' in three weeks) led to logistical nightmares (an INFANTRY division utilized 187,000 horsepower when on the move) and controversial allocation decisions (3rd Army, for example, was down to 1/10th in normal supply the end of August) that are being second-guessed still today.

Fully one half of all war materiel shipping from the US in WW2 consisted of petroleum products, and US refineries produced more than 90% of all the 100 octane avgas used by the Allies, reaching, in 1945, levels 7 times higher than had been forecast in 1942. It would be hard to overstate the accomplishments of the US petroleum industry in WW2.

In answer to another part of your question, the entire American presence in the Saudi Arabian oil fields during the war was reduced to a miniscule number of technicians (the famous '100 men' whose jobs were devoted, not to exploration or exploitation, but to the protection (plugging) of the existing oil wells and the possible destruction of them in the event of an Axis occupation. Although the estimates of Saudi oil reserves (and all those of the Middle East) were studied and revised upward during the war, they never really figured into the math while the war was in progress. Aramco didn't exist at the time. 'Casoc', the child of Standard of California and Texaco did, but they balked at advancing money against future production to the Saudis (who were in a cash crunch at the time) when future production was uncertain. With a eye to the future, US government money was funnelled to the Saudi royal family under the guise of aid from the British (in whose sphere of political influence the Saudi's traveled.),

Regards,

SNIP The national response was tri-fold: construction of an enormous tanker fleet to more than replace those sunk or expected to be sunk; belated construction of escort vessels (including escort-carrier-based ASW Hunter-Killer task groups) and patrol a/c to ensure timely arrival at the intended ports of destination; and construction of two large, long-distance overland pipelines to pump POL resources from the US southwest to the northeast industrial

lwin pustulated:

One of modern history's greatest leaps (and little recognized now) was the development and production of 'synthtic' rubber and its components such as Butadiene by 'consortium' companies like Petrotex. It was estimated that within a few years if necessary, the use of natural latex could be replaced (although early synthetics had some faults) by synthetics at higher but manageable costs. Ever since WWII, the once stranglehold held by natural rubber producers has been less of a threat...

In a related 'shortage' note, when it looked like the Japanese might conquer Bengal and Assam (Eastern India), it wasn't the loss of tea we feared, but the Navy's loss of hemp, in those pre-Nylon and Dacron days, the optimal material for line/cordage/'rope' (to those unwashed by the sea). The US government rushed to save the day by planting/sponsoring hemp planting in Indiana among other places. Little did the realize that along the way to those long and fibrous hemp 'stalks' needed for mooring lines and cargo nets, there was a secondary product.....