Tankers Away

While battle flags flew off Java last week (see p. 15), the blue peter fluttered from yardarms at sunny San Diego and Houston, at blustery Halifax, at hot Aruba and Bahrein. The tanker fleets of the United Nations were busy. Even if the Dutch East Indies were lost, the Allies would still control 93% of the world's crude-oil production, 88% of refining facilities, almost 90% of tanker tonnage.

But, as with dry-cargo tonnage (see p. 10 ), the lonely sea miles of distance offset this huge preponderance of tonnage. Standard Oil Co. (N.J.) alone operates qr controls some 2,200,000 tons, nearly six times the entire Jap tanker tonnage (430,000), and twice the combined German, Italian and Jap tanker fleets. But these and other Allied tankers were built for relatively short, peacetime routes: from the Near East and Black Sea to Europe via the Mediterranean, from Gulf and Caribbean ports to Bayonne and Liverpool. By last year Britain, whose pre-war tanker fleet was over three million tons (plus Norway's two millions), was already torpedoed into an oil shortage. Now the U.S., with some 3,000,000 tanker tons, may feel an oil pinch too.

Last week Harold Ickes "hoped" to stave off oil rationing in the U.S., but made no promises. Instead he made plans with Leon Henderson for printing gasoline coupons, if & when.

As the U.S. sends its tankers elsewhere, the East Coast, which uses about 1,600,000 bbl. of oil every day, will have to depend on tank cars (now bringing in 257,000 bbl. daily), pipelines, barges-and rationing. Even the 250-odd tankers planned for 1942-43 delivery will probably join the Allies' long, long supply lines to the other sides of the world.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.