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WI: Japan discovers the Liaohe Oil Field in the early 1930s?

In the autumn of 1940, Japan requested 3.15 million barrels of oil from the Dutch East Indies, but received a counteroffer of only 1.35 million.


The Liaohe oil field (per OP) has total proven reserves of 6.87 billion barrels, and production peaked in the mid-90s at ~315,000 a day or 15.75M tonnes/annum.

The Daqing oil field contained 16 billion barrels when first discovered in 1960. At its peak the field's production rate was about 800,000 barrels per day (per Wikpedia), but as of 2021 it is 600,000 barrels.


The Shengli oil field has about 650,000 barrels pumped per day.

Sakhalin Field I pumps about 250,000 barrels per day now, and Sakhalin Field II pumps about 395,000 barrels per day. These fields were discovered in the 90s and I am unsure if they could have been exploited with the technology available during WWII, but I suppose the fields available at the time which Japan was pumping in coordination with Russia were similar.


But it seems that even without aggressive expansion elsewhere (like the DEI) Japan could have access to around an additional ~1,760,000 barrels of oil production daily (maybe more or maybe less, as I do not know the details).
 
On the subject of rubber, I found online long ago (2011) a table claiming to give the "Natural Rubber Production per country 1936-1948" referencing BR Mitchell as the source. This was possibly "International Historical Statistics" https://www.eui.eu/Research/Library/ResearchGuides/Economics/Statistics/DataPortal/IHS, which I have not studied. The table gave the production by region for 1939 in thousand tons as Indochina 67, Dutch Indies 383, Malaya 366, Philippines 0.6, Sabah 12, Sarawak 24, Ceylon 64 and Thailand 54.

The message from that is that access to Thailand and Indochina should supply Japan's requirements. Interestingly, Antony Best's "Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbour: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936-1941" mentions that Britain devoted significant resources to buying Thai rubber over 1939-40 to try to prevent it being bought by Japan as it was feared that it might be shipped via the USSR to Germany. This caused some damage to Britain's relations with Japan.
 
In the autumn of 1940, Japan requested 3.15 million barrels of oil from the Dutch East Indies, but received a counteroffer of only 1.35 million.


The Liaohe oil field (per OP) has total proven reserves of 6.87 billion barrels, and production peaked in the mid-90s at ~315,000 a day or 15.75M tonnes/annum.

The Daqing oil field contained 16 billion barrels when first discovered in 1960. At its peak the field's production rate was about 800,000 barrels per day (per Wikpedia), but as of 2021 it is 600,000 barrels.


The Shengli oil field has about 650,000 barrels pumped per day.

Sakhalin Field I pumps about 250,000 barrels per day now, and Sakhalin Field II pumps about 395,000 barrels per day. These fields were discovered in the 90s and I am unsure if they could have been exploited with the technology available during WWII, but I suppose the fields available at the time which Japan was pumping in coordination with Russia were similar.


But it seems that even without aggressive expansion elsewhere (like the DEI) Japan could have access to around an additional ~1,760,000 barrels of oil production daily (maybe more or maybe less, as I do not know the details).

Sakhalin in 1945 was producing 750,000 to 1,200,000 tons per annum; sources differ. The former, being the conservative figure, still equates to ~5.5 million barrels per annum while the latter is over 10 million. The WWII Databook by John Ellis shows the Japanese deficit in 1941 was 11.1 million barrels per annum.
 
Sakhalin in 1945 was producing 750,000 to 1,200,000 tons per annum; sources differ. The former, being the conservative figure, still equates to ~5.5 million barrels per annum while the latter is over 10 million. The WWII Databook by John Ellis shows the Japanese deficit in 1941 was 11.1 million barrels per annum.

Would it be fair to say that between Sakhalin's fields, Manchuria's fields, and the OTL Dutch counteroffer, Japan would have a sufficient amount of oil?
 
Ah, so they'd be solidly in the black. Got it.

Without the oil shortages, would Japan have ever bothered to escalate the war beyond taking Indochina?
Perhaps. Indochina itself isn't that much of a given; they have their 'ally'/proxy of Thailand to provide them with that, especially if Thailand elects to capitalize on the Fall of France to make its play for French Indochina, and the Japanese elect not to intervene as much as they did IOTL. They'd still need steel though, which would probably become the primary focus of the Western sanctions instead, with little to no point of imposing oil sanctions ITTL. And whilst few if any of the Europeans' colonial possessions in SE Asia could provide them with significant sources of that, the Far East of Russia could...
 
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