Geography Says No

Americans need not hope for bigger gas rations because the Axis has been wiped out in Africa. Although the Mediterranean is now open, so that oil from Iraq can be carried west, transatlantic shipments from the U.S. east coast will get no smaller. During the entire North African campaign, the big refineries at Haifa and Suez had to operate at top capacity just to supply the British Eighth Army and Mediterranean Fleet. To get more oil for the big Allied armies now in northwest Africa (and soon perhaps in southern Europe) tankers would have to bring it from the bigger refineries on the Persian Gulf. But from the refinery at Abadan in Persia (now perhaps the world's largest), down through the Persian Gulf, around Arabia, up through the Red Sea, through Suez and through the Mediterranean to any point west of Malta is farther than the sea route to the same point from the east coast of the U.S.

Geography says no; so does capacity. The 400,000-odd bbl. daily produced by the Near East refineries have to supply Field Marshal Wavell's army in India and Burma, the U.S. air forces in India and China, and part of General MacArthur's needs. Only what is left over is available for shipment to the Mediterranean. With bigger campaigns in prospect both in Europe and the Orient, the prospect is that the U.S. will ship more oil after Tunis than before.

Petroleum Administrator Harold L. Ickes warned the East Coast last week that it would have to cut gasoline consumption still further or face a transportation breakdown. The East is exceeding this month's gasoline allotment of 356,000 bbl. a day. Emergency demands of farmers and war workers have been met from reserve stocks, with the result that these stocks have declined to 25% of normal, the lowest level on record. To stop a further drain, OPA may soon crack down on T-book holders (commercial trucks and busses), leaving A, B and C rations unchanged.

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