What role did the ten-inch pipe play in history?
Panorama of oil fields in Northern Sakhalin
What role in stories What difference can a ten-inch pipe make, and one that hasn't been laid yet? In certain circumstances, quite a significant one. We are talking about the Japanese attempt to build an oil pipeline on the Sakhalin oil concession, which they failed to achieve.
Easy to get - hard to get
Japanese oil concessions on Sakhalin in the interwar years are something like a test of deep knowledge of history. They say that if a person knows that the Japanese extracted oil in the northern, Soviet part of Sakhalin, then he is involved in some mysteries of history inaccessible to mere mortals.
However, as far as the technical equipment of these Japanese oil fields in northern Sakhalin is concerned, it is very difficult to find specific information. In addition to the wells, there were also intra-field oil pipelines, tanks, narrow-gauge railways. There was even an oil refinery in Okha. What was located, where and what capacity - it is difficult to find information about this even in Japanese sources, which are very scrupulous about the accuracy of information.
One might think that the author has finally fallen into economic "riveting". However, this is an important question in the following sphere. Why did the Japanese extract so little oil in Northern Sakhalin?
The Japanese estimated their oil reserves at 210 million tons, and these were, in essence, estimates after the initial exploration. But even in this volume, Sakhalin oil could satisfy Japan's oil needs. In the remarkable work "Showa Kogyo Shi", which has everything about everything, it is indicated that in the 6th year of Showa (1931), Japan consumed only 1,5 million kiloliters of oil, while its own production amounted to 331,5 thousand kiloliters, and import - more than 1 million kiloliters. The Japanese, as already mentioned in another article, made large reserves and in the same year had 782 thousand kiloliters in warehouses. Therefore, their consumption could be greater than current consumption and import.
In Northern Sakhalin in the 6/7th year of Showa (1931/32) 186,7 thousand tons or 215,8 thousand kiloliters were extracted, and 272,7 thousand tons or 315,2 thousand kiloliters were exported. Sakhalin oil made up only 21% of current consumption or 14,9% of the oil resources received by Japan during the year.
If a Japanese company extracted about 2 million tons in Northern Sakhalin, it would cover all of Japan's current needs. The peak of oil consumption in the pre-war years occurred in the 14th year of Showa (1939) and amounted to 3,4 million kiloliters. And in this case, there would be enough oil for about a hundred years.
To understand the essence of the situation, you need to know the technical details. There was a fair amount of oil in Northern Sakhalin, but it was difficult to transport it. The wells were located several kilometers from the shore, and the oil still had to be loaded onto a tanker. In the first years of developing the Sakhalin fields, the Japanese transported oil from in-field storage facilities to coastal storage facilities by tank cars along a narrow-gauge railway, and then loaded it onto boats, from which the oil was loaded onto tankers anchored at sea.
Difficult navigation conditions from June to October, strong surf and poor infrastructure development set insurmountable limits to oil production. In the first year, the Japanese, through such backbreaking labor, exported 13,8 thousand tons of oil, in the second year - 44,8 thousand tons (2/3rd year of Showa - 1927/28), although 34,3 thousand and 77,1 thousand tons were extracted respectively. Then, not far from Okha, 6-inch marine oil pipelines were built, which began from coastal storage facilities and went to anchor barrels 2-3 km from the shore, where a large tanker could approach and moor. This made things more fun. Soon the shipment exceeded 200 thousand tons per year.
Japanese oil fields in Northern Sakhalin.
A series of photographs of a power plant in Japanese oil fields.
Thus, the equipment of the Sakhalin oil fields had great economic and military significance.
The oil pipeline was never built
In the 12th year of Showa (1937), the Japanese began to build a second offshore oil pipeline, this time south of Okha, near the village of Katangli, in the vicinity of which there were also oil fields. The scheme was the same: a narrow-gauge railway to the shore, where it was planned to build an oil storage facility, and the oil pipeline itself from the tanks in the sea to two anchor barrels. Unlike the oil pipelines in Okha, which were 6-inch, this project envisaged the use of a 10-inch pipe.
This was already a significant difference. If a 6-inch oil pipeline could pass 18,5 tons per hour, then a 10-inch pipeline could pass 69,2 tons per hour. A naval tanker of the Shiretoko type, of which seven units were built in 1920-1922, could take on board 8000 tons of oil.
The Shiretoko-class tanker Tsurumi in 1922.
The new pipeline allowed it to be loaded within 114 hours or 4,7 days, while the old pipeline would have needed 18 days to be fully loaded. And that's if the sea would give it those days.
Interestingly, the Shiretoko-type tankers carried oil on coal and took 1350 tons of coal for their steam engines. At 10 knots, the tanker could travel 7000 miles, so these tankers were often used to deliver oil from abroad in the interwar years.
The president and director of the Kita Karafuto Sekiyu Kabushiki Kaisha company, Vice Admiral Seizo, took up this matter.
He was appointed head of the company on July 1, 1935, after he had already transferred to the reserves; he was 56 years old that year. He held the post of head of the company until July 17, 1941, after which he was appointed Minister of Industry and Trade in Prince Konoe's third cabinet the following day.
Vice Admiral Seizo's career as a naval commander was unsuccessful. At the end of 1923, he was entrusted with command of the battleship Nagato, but he steered it in such a way that he collided with the battleship Mutsu. Seizo was about to resign, but the commander of the United fleet Admiral Suzuki transferred him to the Ministry of the Navy. Being a good administrator, Vice-Admiral Seizo spent almost all his time in the ministry; he was only occasionally assigned to ships. Before leaving the reserves, he was on the naval General Staff. This is the kind of person who dealt with issues of building an oil pipeline in Northern Sakhalin.
In general, the Kita Karafuto Sekiyu Kabushiki Kaisha company had only three presidents and directors, and all three were vice admirals: Juji Nakazato (1926–1935), Sakonshi Seizo (1935–1941), and Jiro Kozo (1941–1944). The latter, by the way, was also the head of the Technical Naval Department and participated in the founding of the Nippon Steel Corporation. So there is reason to believe that the company for concession oil production in Northern Sakhalin was initially and always a creature of the Japanese Navy and mainly filled the naval storage facilities with oil and fuel oil. As we can see, random people were not appointed to manage this company.
Among the documents related to this issue was a copy of a report on the construction of an oil pipeline in the Katangli area, which Seizo sent to the Japanese Foreign Ministry on February 25, 1937. The report itself was addressed to the Minister of the Navy, Admiral Yonai. It outlined a plan for the construction of a 2300-meter-long oil pipeline from coastal storage facilities to anchor casks, with some drawings.
Plan of all infrastructure in the Katangli area
Drawing of an anchorage for a tanker.
Apparently, the Japanese brought 210 tons of pipes to Sakhalin and began construction in the summer of 1937; in any case, letters to the Japanese Foreign Ministry sent in July and August 1937 state that installation had already begun but was suspended due to the need to obtain permission from Moscow. The Foreign Ministry was involved in this matter because their diplomats had to reach the necessary agreements. For a company created by government decree, this was normal.
The Japanese must have thought that the issue would soon be resolved, but time passed and permission to build did not arrive. Finally, on July 5, 1938, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR issued a decree "On the oil concession on Sakhalin", which denied the laying of an underwater ten-inch oil pipeline in the Katangli area.
This resolution mentions a six-inch land oil pipeline in the Katangli area that was authorized in 1937, but no specific information could be found about what kind of oil pipeline it was, where it led to, or where it came from.
This is how we know history. Of course, against the backdrop of a heart-rending discovery like “the USSR sold oil to the Japanese during the war,” all sorts of pipes and tanks look boring and uninteresting. But that was the root of the issue.
This ten-inch oil pipeline, which was never built, could well have been the last straw that pushed Japan into a world war.
On the historical role of the ten-inch pipe
In the late 1930s, Japan still had a fair amount of oil. In Showa 12 (1937), reserves exceeded 1 million kiloliters, which was 42% of current consumption. The following year, they grew to 1,9 million kiloliters, or 67% of current consumption. But clouds were gathering on the horizon.
Imports for the needs of the army and navy doubled from 1931 to 1936, from 400 to 800 thousand kiloliters, and imports for the civilian sector increased from 616 thousand to 1,6 million kiloliters. Japan is consuming more and more oil, while its own production, that is, production in Japan itself, is almost not growing and reached its peak in 1936 - 401 thousand kiloliters. The country depends on imports, and relations with exporting countries are increasingly worsening, mainly due to Japanese policy in China.
The Sakhalin concessions were probably seen as a way to ensure a reliable flow of oil without getting involved in a major war. Since the USSR had the right to receive a portion of the oil from Japanese production, the calculation was based on interest in concession benefits.
The Japanese would have been in a much better position and perhaps would not have been drawn into the world war if they had secured all of Sakhalin. Returning Northern Sakhalin to the USSR turned out to be not very far-sighted.
But there was a very good reason for this. The unsettled relations with the USSR threatened an armed conflict, which after the phenomenal failure of the "Siberian Expedition" of 1918-1922 looked like an excessively high risk. This military campaign, completely unsuccessful, cost Japan a colossal 1 billion yen, wasted. After the crisis of 1923, exacerbated by the consequences of the earthquake of the same year, the Japanese government was not in the mood for major military adventures. In addition, in the mid-1920s, oil consumption in Japan was not very high and was covered by about half of its own production. The fleet ran on coal, there were almost no cars, aviation had just appeared. Only the navy had begun the transition to fuel oil and therefore had a great interest in oil. But the navy's leadership was also against military adventures and carried out the idea of the Sakhalin concession.
A little more than ten years passed, the situation had changed radically in every sense. But now, after the capture of Manchuria, the USSR had no particular reason to give oil to the Japanese. The idea of building an offshore oil pipeline arose before the impending war in China, and the USSR began to support China. Give the Japanese oil - they will take over China.
But this decision also had a non-obvious side. The lack of reliable sources of oil, if the USSR does not give oil to the Japanese, will lead to the Japanese starting to forcefully break down the doors closed to them.
Most likely, the plan of war against the USSR developed in March 1938 by the headquarters of the Kwantung Army, which resulted in unsuccessful battles for the Japanese at Lake Khasan, had the ultimate goal of ensuring conditions for the capture of Northern Sakhalin. The failure was more than indicative. Therefore, the Japanese had to abandon the use of force to solve their Sakhalin problems.
But then, due to the limited options, they were left with only oil in Southeast Asia, primarily in the Dutch East Indies. There they could count on the weakness of the colonial troops, the remoteness of the main forces of the metropolis, as well as the discontent of local Asians with the European colonizers, which would make the capture easier. But in order to implement this plan, it was necessary that aid to these colonies did not come from either Europe or the United States. From this it followed indisputably that Japan needed Hitler as an ally, and from this followed the plan to attack the US naval forces in the Pacific Ocean.
So the ten-inch pipe could indeed have played a big role in history, even without being built.
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