Ploesti, Romania Oil?

I expect petroleum products produced in Ploesti, Romania, were utilized by German forces advancing on Stalingrad etc, however...

Questions:

-were any petroleum products from this area transported to Germany during the war?

-would tankers with Ploesti product been supplying Axis forces in the Mediterranean?

-were Axis warships refuelling from ports on the Eastern Adriatic coast or the Black Sea?

TIA

-bg-

Damn straight, the Rumanian Oil fields were about the only significant source of supply for crude oil for the Axis powers in Europe once the war with Russia started.

They didn't transport it by sea very much, they were short enough on oil without risking it in tankers that could only get it to Italy anyway. No, Ploesti oil field products would have been transported by road or rail, or perhaps by barge up the Danube.

Maybe a little on the Adriatic, but definetely not in the Black Sea. To reach the Black Sea they would have had to traverse the Galliopoli Straits which were controlled by nuetral Turkey and that was never allowed. Similarly, Allied warships (other than those of the Russian Black Sea Fleet) never operated in the Black Sea.

{snip}

Apart from the tiny oilfields in Hungary, Ploesti was Germany's sole source of oil. So the short answer is yes.

Yes, as it was the only source of oil available to them. See above. Not sure if the Bosphorous was open to axis shipping though, so they'd have to transport it to Italy and load it on to tankers there.

I am not aware that there were any significant axis naval installations on the eastern adriatic coast, although Italy might have established some for light surface forces. The Rumanian navy, supported by the light surface and submarine forces supplied by Germany down the Danube certainly refuelled in the Black Sea.

Cheers

Yes a mixture of refined products and unrefined oil, since Germany had an excess of refining capacity.

It is one of the traps of the axis oil supply calculations, the possibility this fuel is double counted as both German and Romanian production.

Romanian Oil Production, Thousand Tons and Exports in tons columns are year / Crude Oil production / Drilling (km) / Refinery Runs / Domestic Consumption / Exports to Czechoslovakia and Germany / Exports direct to the German Army

1938 / 6610 / 288 / 6228 / 1674 / 999,240 / nil 1939 / 6240 / 256 / 5837 / 1785 / 1,285,153 / nil 1940 / 5810 / 235 / 5472 / 1862 / 1,429,807 / nil 1941 / 5577 / 253 / 5255 / 1811 / 2,885,229 / 34,351 1942 / 5655 / 339 / 5237 / 2098 / 1,822,207 / 369,452 1943 / 5266 / 344 / 4903 / 2007 / 1,795,555 / 715,749

Exports to Italy and Albania were, in tons

1938 560,475 1939 629,350 1940 342,943 1941 761,667 1942 862,179 1943 391,354

You can see how the Germans were really not able to gain much control of Romanian oil, the growth of domestic consumption, in both absolute terms and percentage wise, when added to the reduction in crude production it meant potential exports dropped from around 5 million tons in 1938 to around 3 million in 1943.

Yes there were tankers used. It saved the rail network, for a while to Italy I believe. Much of the oil to Germany went by barge up the Danube.

There were very few axis warships of any size in the Black sea but clearly they would use local oil supplies. There was not a lot of oil infrastructure on the Adriatic coast, the fuel was meant for Italy, not Greece or Yugoslavia.

Geoffrey Sinclair Remove the nb for email.

Ploiesti was _the_ source of oil for the Axis (after BARBAROSSA stopped Soviet deliveries). There were trickles of oil from other places, such as Lake Balaton in Hungary, and large scale production of synthetic oil, but Ploiesti was the mainstay.

Thus Ploiesti became one of the high priority targets of Allied bombers.

For instance, Operation TIDAL WAVE on August 1, 1943, when a force of 177 B-24s of the US Ninth AF attacked Ploiesti, bombing from as low as 500 feet. 54 bombers were lost; five Medals of Honor awarded.

The Axis flak defenses around Ploiesti were as strong as any in Europe. I remember seeing a pilot's account of one of the later raids. As his plane approached the target area, he thought he saw storm clouds gathered above it. Getting closer he realized that the massive black clouds stretching for miles were _not_ _natural_ - they were the explosions of German AA shells.

Oil from Ploiesti, refined there or elsewhere in Europe, was used by Axis forces throughout the Mediterranean.

There were no Axis warships to speak of in the Black Sea. Warships were not permitted to pass through the Dardanelles and Bosporus.

Oil from Ploiesti was shipped by barge or tank car to Germany or Italy, refined into fuel, then delivered to wherever needed.

{snip}

Except that Rumania already had ports on the Black Sea and her not inconsiderable navy was based there. The Germans sent additional naval forces overland (or at least, down the Danube, which is a pretty big river). IIRC some Italian naval units ended up there as well, although mainly MTBs etc.

After a severe drubbing at the hands of the Rumanians and Luftwaffe, it mainly played at 'fleet in being' as far as the western end of the Black Sea was concerned. The Russians conducted a number of major amphibious assaults in the area (esp around the Crimea) though, which was more than the Axis ever did.

Cheers