HISTORY OF AZERBAIJAN OIL AND GAS
For the first time in the World, Haji Kasymbek Mansurbekov from Baku began offshore oil production in Bibi Heybat Bay from two wells located 18 meters and 30 meters from the shore. These offshore fields ceased to exist in 1825 when a violent storm destroyed the wells in the Caspian Sea.
Nikolay Voskoboynikov launched the oil refinery in Balakhani. For the first time in the World, the refinery applied the method of distilling oil with steam and heat by burning natural gas.
Following the proposal made by the member of the Head office of Transcaucasia, Vasiliy Semyonov, the World’s first exploration well was drilled successfully in Baku and Bibiheybat under the leadership of major Alekseyev, the director of Baku oil fields.
Industrially valuable oil was, for the first time in history, produced from wells drilled through the application of mechanical methods at the Bibiheybat and then at the Balakhani fields of Baku.
Dubinin brothers’ large oil refinery was launched in Baku. The refinery primarily produced white oil.
Transportation of oil in wooden barges started in the Caspian Sea.
Foreign capital flow into the Azerbaijani oil industry commenced, resulting in the emergence of a generation of local industrialists.
A deep well pump was applied for the first time. Similar types of equipment were used in the USA approximately 15 years after this event.
The World's first metal hull oil tanker, “Zoroastr,” was built to transport white oil.
The construction of the railroad connecting oil fields with refineries was financed by the “Nobel Brothers” firm and completed in April of 1879.
The Baku-Batumi segment of the Transcaucasian railroad was put to use in May.
On May 16, Brothers Alphonse and Edmond Rothschild founded the Caspian and Black Sea Oil Industry and Trade Society in Baku.
The auger stem method was first applied in well drilling and became famous as the “Baku method.”
For the first time in the history of the oil industry, the engineer G.V. Alekseyev developed and installed an industrial-scale cubic plant that produced benzene and white oil by cracking residual tar at a Baku factory named after S.M. Shibayev.
Under pressure cementing, the oil wells were performed for the first time in the World at the proposal of engineer Mepisov.
For the first time in the World, V. Shukhov and S. Gavrilov devised a continuously moving tubular thermal cracking unit to obtain benzene.
For the first time in the World, the double-deckered Assan Dadashov oil tanker was launched.