§ 30. Mr. Churchillasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the current weekly tonnage of oil being loaded in Arab oil-producing countries (a) bound for the United Kingdom, and (b) bound for other EEC countries ; and what were the equivalent figures for each of the previous three months.
§ Sir Alec Douglas-HomeI regret that figures in the detail for which my hon. Friend has asked are not available. However, figures for the oil arriving in this 143W country are given in the following table. The intake amounted roughly to 8 million tons in August, 5 million in September and 8 million in October. The variations which are given from month to month underline the caution with which monthly, let alone weekly, figures for oil movements must be treated. I should also point out that because of the time taken for oil tankers to travel from the Gulf, most of these figures would relate to cargoes loaded before the introduction of oil embargoes.
UNITED KINGDOM CRUDE OIL IMPORTS FROM ARAB COUNTRIES (Thousand tons) August September October Algeria 280 188 145 Tunisia — — — Libya 899 396 1,230 Egypt 207 — — Saudi Arabia 3,037 2,142 2,941 Kuwait 2,680 1,187 2,348 Qatar 506 294 585 Abu Dhabi 144 114 359 Dubai 200 195 58 Oman 81 138 67 Iraq 154 271 152 Total Arab Countries 8,188 4,925 7,885 Total all Sources 11,648 7,568 11,928