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The big question on which all oil calculations depend is: How soon will the Suez Canal be open again? By last week the first optimistic predictions of three months' work had turned to talk of six months' or more. Once the work is under way, salvage experts hope to clear a shallow channel for ships of 25-ft. draft in a few weeks. Then tankers plying the cape route to Europe from the Persian Gulf could take a short cut through Suez on the empty return trip, cut their time by 25% and costs proportionately.
Even so, Europe still looks to the U.S. to supply much of its oil in the immediate future. Yet, the U.S. Government, which is considering an emergency fuel plan to supply Europe with possibly as much as 750,000 bbls. of oil daily, has made no official move except for okaying a combine of U.S. oil firms to help supply the oil privately (TIME, Nov. 26). For one thing, Britain has got to make its fuel-oil needs known to the U.S., is awaiting an improvement in relations (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). For another, the U.S. is anxious to keep the American-owned Trans-Arabian pipeline from Saudi Arabia to Syria in operation, is going slow so as not to provoke Syria into blowing up that line as it did the line from Iraq. The U.S. was also, obviously, not willing to rush to the aid of Britain and France while their troops remained on Egyptian soil.