Moving oil from CENTCOM to other areas

[Olefin]

Saw the reference to the forces in Korea as one possible place for characters to come from for play in the Pacific Northwest Sourcebook.

Getting oil to Korea is one thing I have been toying with as a possible either follow on adventure module or fanzine series where CENTCOM and the British sends a tanker with fuel from Kenya to Kowloon and Korea for a possible evac of forces to the Middle East. Basically take Med Cruise and modify the premise - its not get to Romania instead its getting across the IO and thru the Straits and the South China Sea and having to face all the fun and giggles along the way.

Alternatively would be dispatched from Australia to get enough fuel to Kowloon and Korea to get their troops home and the surviving Brits and the rest goes to the US forces in Korea.

Would be one way to tie the areas together - and have the commander in Korea decide going home would be the better option versus more years of fighting in Iran and Kenya.

[Legbreaker]

Yeah, NOTHING's going from Australia I'm afraid. Too many calls on it's limited resources already.
That said, there is some interest within the remnants of the Australian government and military at getting the Australians stuck in Korea home. Bit of a pipe dream still in 2000-01 though.

[Southernap]

So if you assume that 2300AD is canon for follow on. Then per the Earth/Cybertech source book and the Adventurer's Guide of the Core Rules, then post Twilight War, the only two nations that still had any worthy merchant fleets is the Japanese and the French. Assume that the Japanese have enough super tankers for their economy. Then they might still be willing to trade troop transport on a super tanker to protect the ship from hostile pirates in places like Bangkok (here is an entry point into Bangkok Source Book) or the Malacca straits. That can provide the fuel coming into and out of the West Coast of the North America as well in exchange for food stuffs and some light industrial goods.

I could even see some smaller style oil tankers making runs to the Lands down under again in exchange for foodstuff and some trade goods.

I also want to say that there is a Challenge article, near the end of that magazine's run, which had a Twilight 2000 scenario that mentioned the use of a Japanese merchant ship to get into Japan and rescue some rocket scientists from a town going into anarchy and bring those scientists to the US to restart the space program in the US.

So those two data points just screams to me that Japan has the best merchant fleet and more than likely in the period from 2001 till 2101 become a major economic power house/trade house in the post war period and even more so under the French Peace period.

[Olefin]

There are tankers running back and forth from the surviving oil fields of the Middle East to Mombasa to use the refinery there that are guarded by the French and by the US. Kenya itself only has a total of six operational oil wells that are producing a few hundred barrels of oil per day so what the refinery is processing is basically all coming from the Middle East.

The refinery is providing oil to both CENTCOM and AFRICOM as well as the French as its the only one in the area still fully working (outside of South Africa). That trade will eventually go down as surviving refineries are brought back online in the Middle East. Those tankers are smaller in size than the supertankers.

And yes love to somehow tie the canon Bangkok module into it as well

FYI even though my stuff is V2.2 I dont see the 2300AD setup as canon - especially how it refers to Mexico and its occupation of the US Southwest - that is a non-starter for me and many others as the chances of the US not taking back that area is basically nil - the faster than light method in the 2300AD canon is more realistic to me than Mexico holding most of the Southwest for 300 years after WWIII and also conquering all of Central America while they are at it

[Southernap]

Originally Posted by Olefin

There are tankers running back and forth from the surviving oil fields of the Middle East to Mombasa to use the refinery there that are guarded by the French and by the US. Kenya itself only has a total of six operational oil wells that are producing a few hundred barrels of oil per day so what the refinery is processing is basically all coming from the Middle East.

The refinery is providing oil to both CENTCOM and AFRICOM as well as the French as its the only one in the area still fully working (outside of South Africa). That trade will eventually go down as surviving refineries are brought back online in the Middle East. Those tankers are smaller in size than the supertankers.

And yes love to somehow tie the canon Bangkok module into it as well

FYI even though my stuff is V2.2 I dont see the 2300AD setup as canon - especially how it refers to Mexico and its occupation of the US Southwest - that is a non-starter for me and many others as the chances of the US not taking back that area is basically nil - the faster than light method in the 2300AD canon is more realistic to me than Mexico holding most of the Southwest for 300 years after WWIII and also conquering all of Central America while they are at it

Even if you reject parts of the 2300AD as canon, the idea that the Japanese Merchant Marine survives since Japan would make the most sense considering that a war in Europe might have had the Japanese to become very isolationist and reject the larger global war situation. It would also make sense that the Soviets would do the same, in either V1 timeline or V2 timeline; that the War in China was about borders and the War in Europe was about suppressing fascists.

That may have even had the Japanese try to do what they would need to do save their own merchant fleet and save their own economy. Considering that short of the US Military bases they had nothing else for nuclear targets for either the US or Soviets. So they could have done exactly what the French did in Europe. Go isolationist and kill anything that tries to land in or around their islands. After the rounds of nuclear strikes occurred.

They need an oil to make their economy work. The French need the electronic tech that the Japanese have; so I could see them working together to maintain peace. Doing what trading is required to maintain their economies.

So I would say that instead of American and British Tankers like we saw in the 20th century. The 21st century will be one of Japanese and French tankers moving the oil required to run the world until peak oil occurs.

[madmikechoi]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Getting oil to Korea is one thing I have been toying with as a possible either follow on adventure module or fanzine series where CENTCOM and the British sends a tanker with fuel from Kenya to Kowloon and Korea for a possible evac of forces to the Middle East. Basically take Med Cruise and modify the premise - its not get to Romania instead its getting across the IO and thru the Straits and the South China Sea and having to face all the fun and giggles along the way.

That still means making the trip at a leisurely 16-17 knots on a tub through the Gulf and into the Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean until crossing via the Strait of Malacca and finally turning north to the Sea of Japan or the Yellow Sea.

Korea has plenty of oil refineries... or more accurately a couple of very big ones that can handle more than half million barrels a day according to wiki w/ the smallest handling 275k barrels located in Incheon (the SK Group/Sunkyoung refinery). I would expect in WW3 that Moscow, Beijing, or Kim Jong Not Very Ill at this point would nuke the shit out of these facilities... or not. I mean this being a fictional WW3 we can expect the US like now spent a fair amount of cash on developing ship based anti ballistic missiles (read SM-3 coming into service a lot earlier w/ ground based radars and satellite support for early warning).

There's also the fact that during this time period Korea is building a lot of merchant shipping competing with Japan. Generally containers but ULCC/VLCCs as well and that means shipyards with drydocks and the ability
to repair hull damage, steering, screws, reduction gearing, etc. Ditto w/ Japan. Even if a nuke hits it... there's still going to be a lot of scrap and hopefully human expertise that might allow something close to a offloading facility and refining enough oil into diesel and jet fuel.

Mad Mikec

[Southernap]

Originally Posted by madmikechoi

There's also the fact that during this time period Korea is building a lot of merchant shipping competing with Japan. Generally containers but ULCC/VLCCs as well and that means shipyards with drydocks and the ability
to repair hull damage, steering, screws, reduction gearing, etc. Ditto w/ Japan. Even if a nuke hits it... there's still going to be a lot of scrap and hopefully human expertise that might allow something close to a offloading facility and refining enough oil into diesel and jet fuel.

Mad Mikec

Heck I could see maybe a useful situation where the Koreans and Japanese may find an working agreement about shipping, oil and refining of oil as required.

I just looked it up and found this list of Japanese Oil Refineries when compared to just the 4 major refineries in ROK. So there could be a brisk trade of shipping and repair facilities between the two nations for what oil that the Japanese trade for and ship into the region.

[madmikechoi]

Originally Posted by Southernap

Heck I could see maybe a useful situation where the Koreans and Japanese may find an working agreement about shipping, oil and refining of oil as required.

I just looked it up and found this list of Japanese Oil Refineries when compared to just the 4 major refineries in ROK. So there could be a brisk trade of shipping and repair facilities between the two nations for what oil that the Japanese trade for and ship into the region.

Oil refineries are also useful b/c they often have hydrogen reformers and SOX/NOX scrubbers so you can have sulfuric and nitric acid production as well. Keep in mind modern chemical processing will also be dependent on a lot of platinum metals so again, making sure sea lanes of communications and supply are clear will be vital.

Japan also has the advantage of having industrialized earlier so they're going to have a lot more in terms of number of refineries.

Either way PACCOM will do its honest best that so long as they get a cut of the refineries (if any are left standing) and to make sure shipyards (if only to do hull and certain machinery repair) are close running- in return what remains of the 7th and 3rd Fleets are going to do convoy escort from the Gulf through Malacca and finally into the East China Sea/North Pacific

Mad Mikec