Omnipresent Oil

> Germany did not need to go to war for oil; her underground rocks are undoubtedly awash with it.

> If France, Czecho-Slovakia, Italy or Japan were populated by Americans with their genius for "wildcatting," the oil output of those countries would, making an allowance for differences in area, equal that of the U.S. today.

These startling assertions express the views of two ranking U.S. geologists who agreed last week that large parts of every continent (with the possible exception oi Australia) are soaked with petroleum, Wrote Harvard's Professor Kirtley F Mather in Science: there is "no chance' that the U.S., which has produced two-thirds of the world's oil, has any monopoly of it. Wrote Wallace E. Pratt, a director of Standard Oil of New Jersey: finding oil requires a "delicate synchronization of science, machinery, and the human equation" that is peculiarly American. His new book, Oil in the Earth (University of Kansas Press; $1), is a yawp in praise of the U.S. "wildcatter."

But Geologist Pratt is specific and scientific. Petroleum was formed (perhaps a billion years ago) from animal and plant remains in the shallow-water marine oozes when their sands and mud solidified into rock. Rocks of this kind comprise 40% of the earth's land surface. Almost all of them should contain oil. With only 15% of the world's potential oil-yielding rock, the U.S. has 54% of the world's proved reserves. The only reason for this, says Geologist Pratt, is U.S. know-how. If & when Asia, Africa, South America acquire the same nose for oil, they will far outproduce the U.S.

The Near East is the best oil hunting ground. Russia, Iran, Iraq, Arabia, Palestine, Turkey, Egypt, Rumania promise more oil from future discoveries than any other region. The eastern Mediterranean is one end of the "oil axis." The other end is the Gulf of Mexico-Caribbean area. These two pools already contain two-thirds of the world's proved reserves.

Next most promising oil prospects are the shores of the Pacific--including Alaska, Chile, Japan, the South Sea Islands. Most promising for the U.S. is the Williston Basin, spreading over parts of Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Saskatchewan, Alberta. But so abundant is oil nearly everywhere that its discovery is primarily a matter of the "social state of mind." Says Oilman Pratt: "Where oil really is, then, in the final analysis, is in our own heads."

This does not mean that the U.S. will continue to dominate the petroleum industry. The rate of discovery of new oil in the U.S. has been falling steadily for five years (TIME. Nov. 17). Frederic H. Lahee, chief Sun Oil geologist, points out that in 1937 almost 1,700,000 barrels of oil were discovered for every wildcat hole drilled. By 1941 the figure was only 622,000 barrels. If this downward trend continues for another five years, new oil discoveries will fall below the amount used and oil reserves may begin a disastrous decline.

Even Optimist Pratt foresees the time when the U.S. reserves of 19 billion barrels will fail. They will not last more than 20 years without new discoveries. Therefore he urges a "truly Good Neighbor Policy" with Latin America since great imports of oil may one day flow to the U.S. from tremendous undiscovered pools in South and Central America.

When post-war planners, mindful of Item 4 of the Atlantic Charter, try to assure to all states the "access on equal terms to the trade and to the raw materials of the world," they may have to bear in mind that the U.S. in the not too distant future may no longer export but import oil.

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