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I'm looking for a source that lists all crude oil production by each nation, as it was in 1940. The reason is to understand geopolitics of the time, especially the oil security (or lack thereof) of each nation participating in WW2.

So far I've only found the US at 4 million barrels per day according to this graph.

DrZ214
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    league of nations yearbook would have a reasonable summary. – pugsville Nov 11 '16 at 10:43
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    http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/league/le0277ah.pdf 1939 figures – pugsville Nov 11 '16 at 10:52
  • @pugsville Thanks, but I'm confused about pages 131 and 132. Page 132 is production of petrol products (like gasoline), which is different than crude oil. I don't know what page 131 is tabulating, maybe imports? – DrZ214 Nov 11 '16 at 11:05
  • 131 is crude oil production, where the oil is pumped to of the ground 132 is petroleum products, where the oil is refined into petroleum products. – pugsville Nov 11 '16 at 11:16
  • @pugsville My OP link shows a graph claiming 4 million barrels per day were produced in the USA in 1940. Page 131 of the pdf claims 171,053, but that's in thousands of metric tons. So 171,053,000 metric tons of oil, at 7.33 barrels per metric tons, translates to 23,336,016.371 barrels for the year of 1939. This is about 64,000 barrels per day. It's a pretty big discrepancy. I'm a bit disappointed in the League of Nations report for not specifying exactly what they mean by "CRUDE PETROLEUM AND SHALE OIL." on page 131. It could be production, purchases, reserves, imports, or really anything. – DrZ214 Nov 11 '16 at 11:35
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    my math gives 3.4 million barrels a day for 1939. (remember 1939 not 1940 figure) close enough not to be concerned. – pugsville Nov 11 '16 at 11:54
  • link to elect various years and files. http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/league/stat.html – pugsville Nov 11 '16 at 12:00
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    @pugsville Thanks, I was dividing by 7.33 instead of multiplying by 7.33. If you make this into an answer I'll accept it. – DrZ214 Nov 11 '16 at 12:41

2 Answers2

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Here is a link with annual oil production in metric tons (Mt), 1936-1948.

The US is by far and away the world's largest oil producer (over 180 million MT in 1940), followed by the Venezuela and the Soviet Union (30 and 27 million MT respectively). The next tier includes Indonesia and Iran (about 8 million MT each), trailed by Mexico and Romania (6 million MT each). Germany got most of her oil from Romania, and could certainly have used Soviet or Iranian oil. In Asia, the East Indies (modern Indonesia) was the big prize.

Tom Au
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  • On that page it says: "Source: BR Mitchell". What exactly is BR Mitchell? – DrZ214 Nov 12 '16 at 06:01
  • @DrZ214: It is a compiler of international statistics. https://www.amazon.com/International-Historical-Statistics-B-R-Mitchell/dp/0333568729 – Tom Au Nov 12 '16 at 23:55
  • BTW, about Germany got most of her oil from Romania, I found this on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Commercial_Agreement_(1940) : In 1938, two thirds of German oil supply came from the United States and Latin America, and it cites a book tho I don't have it. – DrZ214 Aug 03 '17 at 22:55
  • @DrZ214: That was true in 1938, but of course it changed "afterward." Basically, Germany did have the advantage of having stockpiled U.S. oil before the war. – Tom Au Aug 03 '17 at 23:09
  • Thanks, I opened a new question about it so we can get more info: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/39365/at-the-start-of-barbarossa-what-was-the-state-of-germanys-oil-supply – DrZ214 Aug 04 '17 at 01:16
  • Link rot Tom. It's a shame you neglected to extract the chart for posterity here. – Pieter Geerkens Feb 06 '24 at 02:11
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Thanks to user:pugsville for pointing out the League of Nations reports. I chose one with a 1940 column, even though some spaces were not filled in due to war. But as it turns out, all nations producing more than a million tons of oil have a 1940 number.

Statistical Yearbook of the League of Nations 1940-1941

(Mt means millions of metric tons of crude oil produced for the whole year)

Country Crude Oil
USA 182.657 Mt
USSR 29.700 Mt
Venezuela 27.443 Mt
Iran 10.426 Mt
Indonesia 7.939 Mt
Mexico 6.721 Mt
Romania 5.764 Mt
Columbia 3.636 Mt
Iraq 3.438 Mt
Argentina 2.871 Mt
Trinidad 2.844 Mt
Peru 1.776 Mt
Burma 1.088 Mt
Canada 1.082 Mt
Egypt 0.929 Mt

There are more, but I didn't bother including nations that produced less than a million metric tons of crude oil in one year (except Egypt because it was pretty close).

Interestingly, Saudi Arabia is not on the list! Apparently they had not yet found oil there. Iran and Iraq are on the list, though.

Laurel
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DrZ214
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    US companies found oil in Saudi Arabia in 1938 and the production began in 1941. – kubanczyk Nov 12 '16 at 17:55
  • You're absolutely correct. We are so used to ME oil (outside of Iran) that too many people find it even reasonable to assume the Germans were on the way to conquer the Arab oilfields - which weren't there yet. – Jos Dec 05 '22 at 06:48
  • @Jos You're wrong in your assertion: the Germans tried by "cup d'état" to be fueled bu the Iran and Iraq's oil fields, and then in 1942, after it failed, their objective was (among others) to capture these oil fields. You can note that Iranian oil fields were already big producers – totalMongot Dec 07 '22 at 16:32