To a ceremonial blast from its 5 o'clock siren, the first oil refinery to rise in southern Germany was inaugurated in Karlsruhe last week. Built by Jersey Standard, the $57.5-million plant will process 3,600,000 tons of crude a year—but its significance goes beyond these impressive figures. The new plant will draw its crude from a new and vital petroleum artery: the Rhone River Valley pipeline, which provides the first link from the Mediterranean into oil-hungry south-central Europe and helps to meet the commercial threat of the Russian pipe network now reaching toward the West through the Iron Curtain countries.
Stretching...