Japanese shipping oil vs shipping fuel - ques

[jackyo123]

read the interesting blurb below on the AE wiki. It makes the argument that shipping home the fuel (which is much much easier to do, as you can ship fuel in AK's but you cannot ship oil in ak's) will benefit japan more than shipping home the raw oil.

I assume that the oil is getting processed 'somewhere' - but at a base with 300 oil and 300 refinery - why would it ever have a surplus of oil anyway? wont all the oil get consumed by the refinery and converted into fuel? And if there is a lag between producing the oil and consuming the oil (so you can cart some off) - is it better left where it is, and just ship the fuel, as the WIKI claims?


"Proposed Actions

Sending the Oil actually reduces the amount of fuel you get home by 1 in 10 load points, so it's better to send just the fuel if you need fuel.

For example, 1000 points of oil will produce 100 supply and 900 fuel at the home island refineries. The 900 fuel then gets used by 450 heavy industry to produce 900 supplies and 900 HI points. While 1000 points of fuel gets used by 500 heavy industry and produces 1000 supply and 1000 HI.

So for an equal load cost, 1000 oil produces 1000 supplies and 900 HI, while 1000 fuel produces 1000 supplies and 1000 HI. So it's easier to utilize your full heavy industry potential if you send just fuel. It's also easier to exceed fuel demands at the home islands and build up you fuel stockpiles if you ship just the fuel, since you gain an extra 100 fuel for every 1000 load points you ship. "

[Mike Solli]

Here's my humble opinion:  Use TKs (and AOs if that's what you choose to do) and ship all excess oil from the SRA to Honshu.  Use any remaining available TK space (and any AKs you have available too) to ship fuel to Honshu.  Keep in mind that you will need some of the SRA fuel for the fleet.  How much?  I haven't a clue yet. 
 
The reason I suggest you ship excess oil is because you have substantial excess refining capacity in Honshu.  You need fuel.  Oil in and of itself is useless.  It must be converted to be useful. 
 
The other option is to spend significant supply to increase the refining capacity in the SRA to match the excess oil production.  Then you still have to haul the fuel back to Honshu.  Either way, you use fuel to move oil & fuel or just fuel to Honshu.  Why spend the supply to increase refining capacity in the SRA when you have it idle in Honshu (well, it'll be idle when the oil in Honshu is used up by the end of 1942).

[Mike Solli]

Here are some numbers to back up my rambling above:

At the start of the war:

Honshu:  885 refineries
Kyushu:  10 refineries
Pt. Arthur: 120 refineries
Indochina:  20 refineries

Total:  1035 refineries
Total monthly oil need at 100% usage:  310,500 oil

Total oil production (per month) - all Japanese holdings:  67,200 oil

Total oil reserves:  3.28 million oil

Oil reserves will run out in 11.5 months.

SRA & Burma

Total refineries:  2260

Total oil centers:  2620

Excess oil (per day):  360*10 = 3600
Excess oil (per month):  3600*30 = 108,000
Potential fuel (per month) from excess oil:  108,000*9 = 972,000

That's almost 1 million fuel per month lost if you don't ship oil back to Honshu.

If you repair the 150 oil at Miri and 10 oil at Brunei then you have an additional 160*10*30*9 = 432,000 fuel per month.

That's a total of 1.4 million fuel that is lost per month.  If you choose to build additional refining capacity in the SRA to cover that oil, that'll 5200 more refineries to be built costing 5,200,000 supply.

Edit: Someone please check my math!

[jackyo123]

all intersting points, thanks Mike. Will need to give it some thought. I am just thinking about the future, when my tankers are all gone ...

even with the bad torps, allied wolfpack tactics are pretty vicious. I've seen about 10 allied subs in the straits between the PI and Formosa.

[Mike Solli]

If you're concerned about when your TKs are gone, then you need to ship oil now, while you have them.  You can ship fuel in AKs but not oil.
 
If you're seeing a lot of Allied subs at choke points, flood the area with ASW TFs and air units on ASW.  Even if you don't hit many, you'll increase their DL and they will be less effective. 

I particularly like the CHa- class SCs.  They have 8 DC racks.

[Mynok]

108,000 oil per month....[X(]

The trip from Singers to Japan is longer now as well, isn't it? Isn't Sasebo poorly connected to Honshu now?

Guh....that's at least two trips from the hub not to mention all the small feeder trips. Are there really enough tankers to keep up with that?

[CapAndGown]

I don't understand when you say you can expand refineries. I was looking to do this and found there was no expansion button as with other factories. Do you mean repairing damaged refineries?

[jackyo123]

I still dont understand where my excess oil comes from at places that have 300 oil / 300 refinery.  Wont the refinery turn all the oil into fuel/supply? Why would any excess oil ever accumulate there? It does - but how? is there 'leakage'?

[vlcz]

ORIGINAL: jackyo123

I still dont understand where my excess oil comes from at places that have 300 oil / 300 refinery.  Wont the refinery turn all the oil into fuel/supply? Why would any excess oil ever accumulate there? It does - but how? is there 'leakage'?

Probably automatic land transportation of oil from anotrher base that doesn´t have refining capabilities

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

I don't understand when you say you can expand refineries. I was looking to do this and found there was no expansion button as with other factories. Do you mean repairing damaged refineries?

There are many places that produce oil and have not enough or no refineries such as:

Magwe: 300 oil, 100 refineries
Samarinda: 100 oil, 0 refineries.

Basically, in the SRA and Burma, there are 2620 oil centers and 2260 refineries. That makes 360 oil centers producing 3600 oil a day that there is no refinery for.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

I don't understand when you say you can expand refineries. I was looking to do this and found there was no expansion button as with other factories. Do you mean repairing damaged refineries?

I think the problem you're seeing is that there isn't enough supply available in that hex. try checking out one of the refinery hexes in Japan or Pt. Arthur that has a lot of supply. You'll see that you can expand refineries, just like any industry.

[LoBaron]

Ship it to Japan as it eats oil for breakfast.
You need oil not only for fuel conversion but also for HI. You might want to have a buffer pool there
for late war including possible future HI expansions. [;)]


And I also support this view because I would never even dare to doubt anything that Mike says about Japanese industry... [:D]

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Here are some numbers to back up my rambling above:

At the start of the war:

Honshu:  885 refineries
Kyushu:  10 refineries
Pt. Arthur: 120 refineries
Indochina:  20 refineries

Total:  1035 refineries
Total monthly oil need at 100% usage:  310,500 oil

Total oil production (per month) - all Japanese holdings:  67,200 oil

Total oil reserves:  3.28 million oil

Oil reserves will run out in 11.5 months.

SRA & Burma

Total refineries:  2260

Total oil centers:  2620

Excess oil (per day):  360*10 = 3600
Excess oil (per month):  3600*30 = 108,000
Potential fuel (per month) from excess oil: 108,000*9 = 972,000

That's almost 1 million fuel per month lost if you don't ship oil back to Honshu.

If you repair the 150 oil at Miri and 10 oil at Brunei then you have an additional 160*10*30*9 = 432,000 fuel per month.

That's a total of 1.4 million fuel that is lost per month.  If you choose to build additional refining capacity in the SRA to cover that oil, that'll 5200 more refineries to be built costing 5,200,000 supply.

Edit: Someone please check my math!

I did! Not bad, but an error right at the end:

That should be multiplied by .9, not 9. So the lost fuel per month is 97,200, not 972,000. Makes a big difference! 1 Oil point will convert to 9/10 of a Fuel Point, plus 1/10 of supply point.

Point taken, though: Don't re-build refineries in the SRA, ship Oil home instead.

It will be interesting to see how the end-game plays out for the Japanese Economy. I might be nervous about relying on Oil stocks late, because the Allies could just bomb the refineries. I think as 1945 approaches, I would rather ship fuel, and let the Oil burn up. Of course, late in the game other things are happening that can impact Fuel consumption, including the state of the IJN (might not be burning much in 1945!), whether you need much HI (you might have a large stockpile by then), coupled with the fact that aircraft industry will be consuming more HI, but shipbuilding will be consuming less.

[jackyo123]

ahh ok. that explains it.

another question though - in your AAR, you mention you start out the game with 999,999 resources on hand in Tokyo - *but that you have a deficit of 87k*.

I also have the deficit in Tokyo (smaller, maybe 20k) but the result is some idle HI.

Why wouldnt the deficit be made up by the spare resources sitting there?

[Mike Solli]

jackyo,
 
The resource deficit is based on monthly production.  If you ship all excess resources produced to Honshu that month, your reserves will go down about 87k.  The problem is that Honshu's HI and LI needs 6.39 million resources a month to produce at full capacity but Honshu produces only 3.07 million resources, a shortfall of 3.3 million resources.  They begin the war with a stockpile of 3.96 million resources in Honshu, which gives you just over a month to start the flow of resources into Honshu.  (I don't recommend waiting a month to start moving resources into Honshu.  I would start from day 1.) 

[Mike Solli]

Thanks Q-Ball.  Something didn't look right but I couldn't see.  What's one 0 anyway! [:D]

[Q-Ball]

No problem! What I need help with is RESOURCES. I know what I need to do, but moving all the Resources from Sakhalin, Port Arthur, and Sapporo is near impossible. The Sakhalin/Sapporo problem is port size; stevedores working round the clock, still not enough pier space. Port Arthur is just too far......pulling from Korea instead. It's not easy to keep up. Yes, we are expanding all important ports.

[Mike Solli]

I have someting like 20 Aden class xAKs pulling from Pt. Arthur and am barely making headway.  I think every excess resource from China/Manchuria/Korea is winding up there.  It's crazy, but makes resource convoys a bit simpler.

[Nemo121]

Good discussion.

A word to some of the newer players. Pay attention to this thread and other logistics threads like it.... Threads about winning CV battles and CAP settings etc might be sexy but logistics and the Japanese economy is where you are going to most probably lose your game in mid to late 42 or early 43.

If you marshall your logistics well you'll continue having more options and more success than a tactically effective player who doesn't have command of the economy and thus doesn't produce enough to be able to pull off truly interesting plans.

[erstad]

I agree you don't want to repair any refineries in the DEI, but I recommend running the ones you have and shipping fuel back to the HI when possible. It's a better use of your liquid capacity, since 10 fuel takes the same space as 10 oil, but provides 11% more HI fueling. Plus you don't need the extra supply in the HI - you just use more fuel shipping it. Whereas supply you generate in the DEI can go to Singers, Bangkok, etc. with shorter distances.