Fuelling Stations

FUELLING. STATIONS are repositories or warehouses located at convenient ports for supplying coal and oil to commer cial and naval vessels. In the latter half of the 19th century as steam vessels replaced the old sailing ships in ocean transport, the trade of the world began to settle down upon definitely fixed routes and, with the opening of the Suez and afterwards of the Panama canals, the great sea lanes encompassing the globe were completed. Along these lanes fuelling stations have grown up at ports where merchant ships have found it convenient to take fuel for replenish ing their bunkers. In the early days of steam, the endurance of the ships was low, frequent bunkering was necessary, and coaling stations came into being at every few hundred miles along the trade routes. The increased size of ships, improvements in the steam engine, the use of oil fuel, and lastly the introduction of the internal combustion engine, have now added greatly to the time that ships can keep to sea without refuelling. Consequently some of the older coaling stations are decreasing in importance, whilst others, under the influence of oil are growing rapidly. At few but the terminal ports on the great trade routes, is either coal or oil native, and the "bunkering" trade, which carries oil or coal from its sources to the fuelling stations, forms no small part of the commerce of the world.

Naval Fuelling Stations.

With the growth of the commer cial fuelling stations, strategic positions were chosen for supply ing the needs of the navies charged with the duty of protecting and keeping open the trade routes. Until 1878 the question of coaling stations for the British Fleet was not seriously con sidered, but in that year the threat of war with Russia drew attention to the exposure of the expanding British commerce to the depredations of hostile cruisers. Public alarm led to the appointment of a royal commission to enquire into the protection of British commerce at sea. Unfortunately, the cardinal fact that the basis of protection of seaborne commerce must be a mobile navy was ignored and the necessary standard of naval strength was excluded from the terms of reference of the commission. It was not recognised at the time that it is the movement of commerce at sea in war time, and not its security in port, that is vital to the British Empire. The corrr mission in its report in 1881, recommended the erection of fortifications at certain ports; this resulted in a great scheme of passive defence of the coaling stations which has since been proved to be entirely incorrect in principle. Heavy guns were mounted in forts at Cape Town, Singapore, Hongkong, Bermuda and elsewhere, but most of the works were obsolete before they were completed. The commission, however, recognised that none of these forts could exist without the support of a naval force, and they went beyond their terms of reference to issue a grave warning as to the then state of the navy, which even tually bore fruit in the Naval Defence Act of 1889.

From this time forward it was recognised that the determining factor in the defensive policy of the Empire was the protection of its trade and that the defence of the fuelling stations, be they commercial or purely naval, must depend primarily upon the navy. They require only sufficient local defences to deal with predatory raids of cruisers ; such raids could only be made by a few cruisers and, unless supported by troops (a contingency impossible in the face of a strong naval force), could have no permanent effect. Coal stored on shore cannot be damaged by gunfire from a ship and men must be landed to damage or appropriate it. Oil fuel, however, unless stored in underground tanks, is vulnerable both from gunfire and from aerial attack. Therefore fuelling stations, in common with all commercial ports, now require defence from aerial attack if they are situated within the radius of hostile aircraft or are liable to a raiding attack from cruisers carrying aircraft.

The World War demonstrated that the fleet which establishes and maintains the command of the sea has no difficulty in keeping itself supplied with fuel. Even at the height of the intensive German submarine campaign, the British navy was never hampered by shortage of fuel. The fleets did not seek the established fuelling stations to replenish, but improvised bases in sheltered waters within each sphere of operations, to which fuel was sent in oilers and colliers.

Modern navies now depend almost entirely upon oil fuel and the fuelling stations are in the course of reorganisation according to the needs of each individual nation. For the British Navy, besides the large stocks of oil fuel maintained in the Home Dockyards, oil depots have been established at the old coaling stations at Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, Suez, Aden, Ceylon, Rangoon, Singapore, Hongkong, Jamaica, Sierra Leone, the Cape of Good Hope, Falkland Islands, Halifax, Vancouver and in the Australian and New Zealand ports. The vital supplies of fuel are thus assured to the Navy, although only a small portion of the world's supply of oil is produced within the British Empire.

The United States has coaling stations at Havana, Balboa, Honolulu, Manila and Iloilo.

Commercial Fuelling Ports.

The necessity for a well placed chain of fuelling ports to the commerce of the world is well shown upon the map. The thickness of the lines of the main trade routes indicates the average number of British ships on each route on each day throughout the year and gives an approximate indication of the volume and flow of world trade; except of course in the case of the great coastwise trade of the United States through the Panama Canal and in other more local areas such as the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. It is seen that the British trade routes are marked out by fuelling stations and that those in territory under Imperial control are well placed for maintaining the flow of seaborne traffic in the event of foreign ports being closed to British ships in war time. The United States has a large number of fuelling stations around her coasts and also in the West Indies, Panama, Hawaii and the Philippines, where her overseas interests lie. France and Portugal maintain stations in their colonial possessions overseas, but Japan, Italy, Spain and the smaller countries confine their stations to their own territories. Central America has many fuelling stations, chiefly used for the export of oil fuel and there are numerous stations around the South American Coast capable of supplying both oil and coal.

The principal sources of the world's fuel supplies are shown upon the map. The chief coal fields are in the temperate zones, mainly in the northern hemisphere; petroleum comes from two main belts, each situated between latitudes 4o N and io S, one in cen tral America and the other in the Middle East, between Persia and the Dutch Indies. Great Britain is the greatest coal exporting country in the world and exports about 3o% of the coal mined, about one third of which goes to make up the "bunker trade" for keeping the coaling stations on the trade routes replenished. In addition to the bunker coal sent to the Continental ports, British coal is sent to the `'Vest Indies and as far south as Buenos Aires. It supplies the Mediterranean ports and the coaling stations on the eastern trade routes as far east as Singapore and Hongkong.

The United States is the largest producer of coal in the world but uses about 95% of the coal mined for home consumption. Of the 5% exported in the coastwise trade to the Atlantic and Pacific ports and the Panama canal area, a small proportion only is represented by the bunker trade. The Canadian coal fields of Nova Scotia and Vancouver each have a coastwise export trade upon their respective coasts and the Chilean coal fields support a small export trade in the south Pacific. Natal coal finds its way to the Red Sea, where it comes into competition with cargoes from the British coalfields : it is sent to India and Ceylon and as far east as the Dutch Indies and Singapore; Colombo and Sabang are important bunkering ports where British and Natal coals are obtainable. Coal from the Japanese and Chinese coal fields is exported as far west as Singapore. The Australian coalfields, the most important of which is situated at Newcastle (New South Wales), supply a coastwise trade to the Australian and New Zealand ports and Australian coal can be obtained as far north as Singapore. It is a notable fact that Singapore, one of the four greatest seaports in the world, is the terminal point of four streams of the coal export trade for bunkers, two of the coal fields being over 6,000 miles away. Yet Singapore is situated in close proximity to the oilfields of Burma, Borneo and the Dutch Indies.

Oil Fuel.—Turning to the world's sources of oil, the United States, Mexican and northern South American fields produce the greatest quantity, their output in 1927 representing no less than 84.3% of the world supply. Next in order come the Rumanian, Polish and South Russian Group with 8.2%, whilst the Persian, Burma, Dutch East Indies and Egyptian fields account for 6.5%. The remaining 1% comes from other countries; this includes a considerable amount from the Argentine and a small supply from Japan.

In 1927 the world produced and used three times as much oil as in 1913 and a glance at the map shows that the general flow of the oil carrying trade is, with the world supplies as they are at present, in the reverse direction to that of coal. Special ships are necessary for carrying oil and the world tonnage of oil "tankers" rose from 1,500,000 in 1913 to over 6.000,000 in 1927, more than one third of which is under the British flag. Oil is being used in ever increasing quantities for marine propulsion. Apart from the burning of oil fuel under steam boilers in warships and large liners, the internal combustion engine it demanding an increasing quan tity of its special fuel. In 1927 5.2% of the world merchant ship tonnage was driven by oil motor engines, more than a quarter of these being British ships : in the same year more than one half of the merchant ships under construction in the world were to be motor driven. Oil is evidently the future fuel upon the sea on account of its economy, flexibility and ease in handling and the increased endurance at sea which it affords. Provision is already being made for it, for in 1927 there were over 35o fuel oil bunker ing stations in being, more than one quarter of which (excluding the great naval stations) were in British territory.

, Coal will continue to be used at sea especially for short voyage traffic in countries where no oil is found and where it is therefore expensive e.g., the British Continental, coastwise and Mediter ranean trades. But science has discovered a process of distilling oil from coal and with the development of this invention upon a commercial basis, Great Britain will be able to use her inex haustible coal supplies more economically and so become an oil as well as a coal producing country. Such a development would be of inestimable economic value to Great Britain. She stands in her unalterable position at the centre of the world trade routes: her great trade has been built up on cheap and abundant coal: now that the oil era has dawned she requires but a similar supply of the new fuel to increase her trade and maintain the pros perity built on her mines.

Whatever fresh sources of oil are opened or new methods of using coal are invented the fuelling stations are likely to remain unchanged, except for the type of fuel they stock. Their position has been established by years of trade upon routes which are fixed. Merchant ships will always re-bunker on their particular routes where fuel is to be obtained most cheaply and upon those routes must be maintained adequate supplies of fuel for the navy whose duty it is to keep the high roads of the sea safe and secure to all traders, both in peace and in war. (S. T. H. W.)