Replies to post #2170 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

'll bet that German geologists knew that there was oil under the sand...

nah, oil wasn't discovered in Libya until the 1950s. The Italians looked for oil in the 1930s but concluded that there wasn't any there. There is only 1 known natural oil seep in Libya and it is in the far SW of the country. Libya has some high quality crudes and it doesn't take much work to make crude refineries. Environmental and safety concerns weren't high on Rommel's list so if he'd known about the oil, he certainly would've used it.

[OakesCS]

bit of a correction to my earlier post:

In 1914, methane was detected in a water well at Sidi el Masri at a depth of 150 m [480 ft]; gas was also noticed subsequently in other water wells.

The Italians continued their scientific endeavors in Libya after World War I, ...working under the leadership of Ardito Desio...demonstrate[d] that a working petroleum system existed in Libya. In 1938 Desio found enough "blackish drops of crude oil" to fill a bottle in a water well drilled near Tripoli. This led to a 2-year reconnaissance campaign...in the area then known as Tripolitania and the drilling of a dry hole.

Desio identified the Sirt basin as being the most favorable area for hydrocarbon accumulations.

By the summer of 1940, the war ...put a stop to petroleum exploration...

from "A Brief History of Libya's Oil and Gas Industries"