The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

regarding the refinery bit: you're probably thinking of more sophisticated refineries than what i'm thinking of. A bunch of refineries were thrown up around the US in the mid-1970s that weren't much more than a bunch of atmospheric distillation units. I think many were operational within 1 yr of starting construction.

There's no argument that any large facilities would have become bombing targets but making diesel isn't much more complicated than making moonshine. I don't know how long the Germans controlled parts of coastal Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia but if they had any spot for 2 continuous years, then they could've supplied themselves (assuming they could've drilled the wells which is probably a bad assumption).

of course, one could also argue about the Caspian campaign which would've made Libyan oil irrelevant. The Caspian was known oil producing region and had existing refineries. mania is sometimes a good thing.