Even Europe's combined automobile output could not compare with East Africa and the United States. One of the main reasons was still the lack of oil. Precisely because of this, Europe also developed a so-called "wood gas" automobile. Using wood as fuel, it heated the timber under oxygen-deficient conditions, decomposing it into combustible gases such as carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and small amounts of methane.
And without question, Germany was the most advanced in this technology. After all, Germany had suffered bitterly under the blockade during the First World War. Thus, ensuring energy security and independence had always been one of Germany's primary directions of attack.
The Soviet Union did not lack oil, but its automobile industry had started too late, and its oil extraction capacity still needed improvement.
In the Soviet Union's First Five-Year Plan, oil industry projects occupied an important position. The Soviet government's goal was to double oil production, raising it from a little over ten million tons to more than twenty million tons.
On one hand, this would provide a stable energy guarantee for subsequent Soviet industrialization. On the other hand, oil exports were now the Soviet Union's most important source of foreign exchange, accounting for nearly one-fifth of its foreign currency income.
In 1929, Soviet oil production stood at roughly 11.6 million tons, of which exports reached around 4.5 million tons, with the vast majority going to the European market.
During the Soviet First Five-Year Plan, investment in oil industry construction accounted for 8 percent of the country's total industrial investment. It also planned to establish an oil industry consortium directly under the management of the State Economic Committee, demonstrating just how much importance the Soviet government attached to the oil industry.
The Soviet Union currently had two most important oil-producing regions. One was the traditional