Too funny, I was just in the middle of posting you!
Desio know there was oil there; with the technology of the day it was deemed economically impractical to get it.
Also, I'm talking about the German geologists and petrochemical engineers whose views of their Italian counterparts was not much better than the German soldiers' views of their Italian counterparts.
Yes, by the late 30's, early 40's, the war intervened. It's convenient for us to look at all the "what if's" in history with the advantage of hindsight, but instead of being fixated on attacking and conquering Eastern Europe & Russia from the West, if Hitler had thought to consolidate his position on the African continent—with the help of the already established Italians—and then moved Northeast from there, things might have been different.
Part of that consolidation would undoubtedly been the building of a massive German infrastructure, including better roads and, germane to our discussion, oil refineries. However, to suggest that in 1941-1942, Rommel could have built and sustained and protected from Allied bombing oil refineries in the Libyan deserts is far-fetched.
(I'm a bit of a WWII buff, as you might have guessed. :-))
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