It is interesting that during the war the germans produced over 50% of their fuel requirements for vehicles- petrol, and over 90% of their aircraft fuels- high octane petrol, synthetically. That is the reason they invaded Russia to capture the oil fields in southern russia- Ploesti I think. After the war the americans declared the technology for the production of these fuels a war secret and made it unavailable to the public, the reasoning I would think would be that they were an oil exporter at the time, but surely things have changed since then.
