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Synthetic Fuel and Imperial Japan

D

d32123

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One of the greatest challenges for the Axis Powers during WWII was oil. With the United States producing an overwhelming majority of the world's oil in the 1930s/1940s, the Germans and Japanese were constantly starved for options, and this oil shortage drove a lot of their military decisions. In the case of the Germans, they relied on crude oil imports from Romania and the Soviet Union, and later just Romania. To make up for this shortage, the Germans produced tons of synthetic fuel from coal and other materials. And while they were unable to produce it in necessary quantities, it was enough to keep their military functional until the end.

The Japanese famously invaded the Dutch East Indies with the hopes of securing its oil supply. Unlike the Germans, the Japanese were never able to master the production of synthetic fuel. But what if they had? Could Japan have avoided war with the Allies?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00033799300200211
 
d32123 said:
One of the greatest challenges for the Axis Powers during WWII was oil. With the United States producing an overwhelming majority of the world's oil in the 1930s/1940s, the Germans and Japanese were constantly starved for options, and this oil shortage drove a lot of their military decisions. In the case of the Germans, they relied on crude oil imports from Romania and the Soviet Union, and later just Romania. To make up for this shortage, the Germans produced tons of synthetic fuel from coal and other materials. And while they were unable to produce it in necessary quantities, it was enough to keep their military functional until the end.

The Japanese famously invaded the Dutch East Indies with the hopes of securing its oil supply. Unlike the Germans, the Japanese were never able to master the production of synthetic fuel. But what if they had? Could Japan have avoided war with the Allies?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00033799300200211
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Wouldn't synthetic fuel production require a lot of coal, which Japan didn't particularly have?
 
TheIO said:
Wouldn't synthetic fuel production require a lot of coal, which Japan didn't particularly have?
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Well the Home Islands lack significant coal deposits but my understanding is that they had access to significant amounts in China.
 
Sulemain said:
Which involves shipping it to Japan.

The US Navy submarine fleet says hi.
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Yeah obviously after Pearl Harbor this would make little difference. But Japan had been involved in China for a decade by that point and policy would likely be altered without the oil crunch.
 
d32123 said:
Yeah obviously after Pearl Harbor this would make little difference. But Japan had been involved in China for a decade by that point and policy would likely be altered without the oil crunch.
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That would involve Japanese High Command having some appreciation of logistics. Which they didn't.
 
TheIO said:
Wouldn't synthetic fuel production require a lot of coal, which Japan didn't particularly have?
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d32123 said:
Well the Home Islands lack significant coal deposits but my understanding is that they had access to significant amounts in China.
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The numbers on this aren't brilliant but from what I've been able to gather Japan didn't have the sort of abundance of coal that would be necessary for a synthetic fuel industry. Even with the conquered fields they could exploit in China they were more or less breaking even by consuming about the same amount of coal they were producing, I doubt that they would have enough coal to convert into the 100,000 barrels of imported oil they were consuming annually prior to the Allied blockade, especially considering that the Germans at the height of their synthetic production never produced more than 41,000 barrels per year. Synthetic fuel plants are also incredibly expensive to maintain and considering that money was another thing Japan was about to run out of in 1941.
 
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There's a reason why the most advanced liquidation facilities were in Korea of all places. By 1944, Wonsan was the sole major producer of lubricating oil, all liquidated from high quality Korean coal.
 
Sulemain said:
As in the the Japanese, from all I've heard and read, would rather invest time, materials, manpower and money in big shiny warships then convoys and infrastructure.
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Japan's relatively weak merchant marine was very much a pressing concern. Global overtonnage and the impact of the depression on the Japanese economy hit the shipbuilding industry badly but the government did take steps to alleviate this, going out of their way to subsidise shipbuilding ("scrap and build") and eventually they amalgamated the major shipbuilding companies into one body to try and and streamline production. By WW2 they were still reliant on foreign merchant shipping, which caused them to take a hit when battle lines were drawn but in 1939 they had the third largest merchant marine behind the UK and US and were producing almost as much tonnage as the latter.

Their shipbuilding industry couldn't handle attrition of the war but that wouldn't have mattered if they weren't at war with the WAllies. The Chinese navy was almost non-existent by 1940 and they had lost most of their coast line.
 
The Red said:
Japan's relatively weak merchant marine was very much a pressing concern. Global overtonnage and the impact of the depression on the Japanese economy hit the shipbuilding industry badly but the government did take steps to alleviate this, going out of their way to subsidise shipbuilding ("scrap and build") and eventually they amalgamated the major shipbuilding companies into one body to try and and streamline production. By WW2 they were still reliant on foreign merchant shipping, which caused them to take a hit when battle lines were drawn but in 1939 they had the third largest merchant marine behind the UK and US and were producing almost as much tonnage as the latter.

Their shipbuilding industry couldn't handle attrition of the war but that wouldn't have mattered if they weren't at war with the WAllies. The Chinese navy was almost non-existent by 1940 and they had lost most of their coast line.
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Oh I agree with all of that, but the point I was making is that all synthetic oil production might, might, do is prolong the war in Japan's favour.

And I'm of the opinion that war between Japan and the Western powers was pretty much inevitable, although the timing is very variable.
 
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