The Royal Navy off the coast of Burma, now Myanmar, during the Second World War
From the Archives: Oil in the far east
As part of our 90th anniversary, we take a look at how Petroleum Economist covered key events in the history of oil and gas. Firstly, our founder Oskar Tokayer reports on Japan's war in the Pacific in January 1942
The opening moves in Japan's perfidious assault upon the British Empire and the United States have clearly been dictated by economic as well as by purely strategic considerations. Being herself deficient in iron ore, certain non-ferrous metals, rubber, and oil, Japan could not contemplate a prolonged war without securing access to those materials. And it is only by assaulting her peace-loving neighbors, who possess them, that she could attempt to achieve this end. Indeed, Japan could not have gone to war at all had she not been able over a considerable period of time to augment her stocks of essential war materials from the very countries she has now occupied or set out to defeat. Before th
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