Research for Consumption Rates

This study evaluates petroleum issues facing the Navy over the next 20 years. It analyzes the threat of reduced availability of petroleum and the probable effects on Naval warfare, on the selection of weapons, and on mobility. There are four areas of investigation: the current oil market, production forecasts, the prospect of import interruptions, and Navy options. The study addresses the changes in the oil market since the embargo of 1973. It explains how those changes in the market have affected Navy budgets and eroded steaming and flying hours. Published forecasts of lowered production of petroleum and the threat of interruptions of imports are evaluated for their potential to disrupt world markets out to the year 2000. Several aspects of future petroleum supplies are quantified. The study concludes by recommending measures the Navy can take to deal with the problems of reduced fuel availability and quality.

Regression analysis is used to estimate the effects of a ship's steaming on the failure rate of its equipment, holding constant the effects of other factors such as a ship's class, fleet, time since overhaul, and point in the deployment cycle. Equipment failures are measured with data on 14,000 CASREPs for destroyer-type ships in 1970-75. It is widely thought that steaming would increase the number of equipment failures due to wearout. However, this report found that the failure rate of equipment seemed to decrease with steaming in the long run.

This paper estimates U.S. dependence on foreign oil for the period 1975 through 2000 and examines the economic effect on the U.S. of an interruption of this oil.