Oil Repair

[Chris21wen]

I've seen this queried many times and until know I only had a glimmer of a chance of answering it.

Well the answer for oil production to get into the black in my latest game against the AI is 570 turns or Jul 22 1943. It would have maybe been a few months earlier but for some days where the bases repairing oil did not have a enough supply (>10K).

Other than the bases having enough supply the time taken also depends on the amount of damage. Unfortunately I can't remember the exact figures but I do remember there being three loactions with significant damage and those were approx. Palembang (300), Miri (100) and Medan (60) damaged, other locations had very minor damage. The current situation being only Palembang (47) has any damage left.

I did also make a mistake early on in that I was also repairing fuel for some time (a year I think). I didn't really need to, I've always been in the black with fuel but if you do repair fuel and oil at the same time oil will always be in the red.

The last thing is, it is against the AI and it made no attempt to damage further or disrrupt supply lines. Against a human....

So what's that tell us if the same level of damaged occured and everthing goes swimmingly. Well it's not exactly a accurate test but I'd expect oil production to get into the black somewhere between late 42 and mid 43. If everthing goes perfectly without the errors I made then late 42 otherwise the latter.

What did it cost in supply to repair. Just using the figures above 460-47 = 413K. So was it worth it? You might not bother!

[BBfanboy]

Don't know about Medan and Palembang, but Miri starts with 150 repaired wells and has 150 'damaged' (under development) wells. That's in 1126a version and no damage from enemy action. Same numbers for the refinery but as you mentioned, there is no need to repair the 150 under development refinery points. Japanese can refine on the home islands and Allies can send oil to Australia.

There are three considerations for repair of refinery points at Miri - local fuel supplies, cost of hauling fuel from Japan, and supply for local troops.
For the Japanese the fuel cost of hauling the oil via tanker is a considerable factor and developing local fuel production saves hauling fuel from the HI.
Whether Miri's potential fuel production is needed depends on how much naval activity is going on in the South China Sea and how much damage Palembang and Medan have had to their oil wells.
The supply produced by the refinery is useful to ground troops and planes but the 1000 supply per point of refinery repair is more useful in the short run. Still, the fuel cost of bringing in supply from elsewhere is a consideration.
At the point when the Allies are in position to start taking back Borneo it is best to stop repairing refinery points for them!

[Chris21wen]

The Miri thing, forgot that been over 2 years since I started the game. When I post this I got to the end and thought, I'm missing something here'. Now I remember what it is fuel and that I have no idea about but I can say I've never been in the red with fuel but I am playing the AI and more or less letting the Allied AI do it's thing. Very few combat TF on my part.

This little post was all about how long it takes not if it's worth it, that is as you say, debatable.

[BBfanboy]

Yes, I understood your post was about total time to repair and that was info that was not available before so I applaud it.
I always try to add info that might be of interest to newer players who haven't yet had to deal with the situation in the post, so the comments about considerations were directed at them. I am sure you already knew that stuff!

[Yaab]

I did a test many years ago though for LI in Changsha:
https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopic.php?t=257115

[LargeSlowTarget]

From what I have read, the 150 damaged Miri oil is not " under development", it is the result of deliberate sabotage. The Brits had prepared a "denial scheme" pre-war and did put it into action when they sensed an aggressive move was going to happen soon. They started to remove key machinery components like pumps for example from the oil installations. They were moved to Singapore for storage, where the Japanese captured the parts and brought them back to Miri to be reinstalled.