3.  The Russian campaign has altered this situation in tile following respects:
      (a) Total consumption of petroleum has undoubtedly increased substantially, despite
further curtailment in less essential uses.
     (b) Difficulties of oil transport from Rumania to Germany, which had inhibited the
effectivencss of this area as a source of supply, are reported to have been somewhat alleviated;
and it has proved possible to send Rumanian oil directly North and East, to the Axis armies in the
field.
       Russian petroleum supplies, previously available at the rate of about a million tons a
year, have been cut off and this has been only partly offset by the acquisition of the Galician fields.
     (d) Heavier R. A. F. bombings have probably impaired tile operating efficency of refineries
and synthetic plants in Western Europe and destroyed some oil stocks.
     Almost all estimates of current consumption indicate that Germany is at present
maintaining its war machine partly out of petroleum stocks, accumulated before June 1941.
Estimates of the rate at which depletion is proceeding vary; the extreme calculations, chiefly
British, indicate that the present rate, if maintained, would exhaust German petroleum resources
within the next calendar year.
      4. The following factors make complete exhaustion unlikely within the next year
      (a) More moderate estimates of continental consumption suggest that the drain on stocks
may be as little as 10 percent per year.
      (b) The intensity of warfare, and therefore the oil consumption rate, will probably not
remain steadily at its present high level.
       The possibility that Germany will gain control of the fairly accessible oil fields of the
Northern Caucasus. In that case, substantial quantities of oil will probably be obtained, regardless
of Russian sabotage and the diilSculties of transport.
     (d) There is still a small margin by which civilian consumption can be reduced; and the
possibility of using producer and bottle gas equipment in motor vehicles and other industrial and
commercial uses has not been fully exploited.
     (e) New synthetic oil plants may be brought into production.