Hemispheric Solutions

Kept in the dynamite box by the Army and Navy for a month, a report to OPM by a committee of 25 top oilmen, released last week, told how the East might cope with Harold Ickes' threat of "gasless Sundays" (TIME, May 26). Chief conclusion: there is a shortage of tankers, which will make the shortage worst this winter, but it will be almost over by next summer. Meanwhile there are ways to alleviate it.

After pointing out that its predictions might be upset if still more tankers are withdrawn for the British shuttle, the committee estimated that in the present quarter, oil deliveries to the East will be 11,200,000 bbl. short, 8.8% of East Coast demand. The shortage for the winter quarter will be 23,300,000 bbl. (15%), for the first quarter of next year, 19,400,000 bbl. Assuming that 10,000 deadweight tons of tanker can haul 375,000 bbl. of oil a quarter, the committee translated these barrel shortages into tanker shortages: 300,000 tons this summer, 636,000 tons this winter. It figured that 264,000 of these tons per quarter could be saved, in theory at least, thus:

P:Heavier loading of tankers: 130,000 tons.

P:Hauling more oil from the Gulf Coast, less from distant California: 50,000 tons.

P:Rearrangement of South and Central American haulage and supplies: 40,000 tons. (Chile, for instance, could get its fuel from Peru instead of California.)

P:More effective use of ocean and Great Lakes barges: 30,000 tons.

P:Completion of Southeastern gasoline pipelines: 14,000 tons. (A Senate subcommittee heard railroad objections to a bill to speed these lines last week, reported favorably on the bill, nonetheless.)

Requiring many complex adjustment and contract changes, these proposals would give a transport value of 26 10,000-ton ships to the Eastern area--about half the number transferred to Oil-for-Britain. As for the remaining shortage, the report said "this could be protected by rail movement."

To Association of American Railroads President Pelley's contention that the industry should yank 20,000 idle tank cars off sidings, the oilmen replied that these cars were a normal reserve required for coming peak movements. They questioned whether the railroads had the motive power to haul any more tank cars, and suggested that a better solution was to use present equipment more efficiently, and to use more tank trucks on short hauls.

Oilmen, who have drilled from Baku to the Barco, are internationally minded. Most pertinent fact about last week's report was its treatment of the oil shortage as a hemisphere problem, with hemispheric cures. It blandly pointed out, for example, that there are plenty of Italian, German and Danish tankers idle in this hemisphere--"aggregating about 50,000 deadweight tons in Venezuelan ports and 80,000 deadweight tons in Mexico--it should also be noted that there are about 100,000 deadweight tons of French flag tankers at Martinique." These ships (in addition to 50,000 Axis tons in U.S. ports), said the oilmen, would help the situation greatly if used "in transatlantic or Western Hemisphere service." And if & when the U.S. has to cut fuel and gasoline consumption, the report took it for granted that South America and Canada should order "gasless Sundays" too.

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