OIL GERMANS WANT

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 285, 1 September 1942, Page 3

OIL GERMANS WANT

Baku’s 30,000,000 Tons A Year

Baku, Russia’s chief source of crude oil, has, under the Soviet regime, changed out of all recognition, writes a correspondent. Now it has none of the oil and grease associated with an oil city. There are forests of derricks, of course, but the city itself consists largely ot pleasant homes of grey and yellow stone where the oil-workers live, surroundeu uy parks and playgrounds. The oil industry lias been modernized in the last o 0 years, lu 1913 the output of oil from the Baku fields was about 13,000,000 tons, but, with American aid and modern machinery, the output is now 30,000,000 tons a year. Next in importance to the Baku herns are those of Grozny, in the Terek province, where several separate pools, yielding at the rate of over 2,700,000 tons a year, have estimated reserves of 150,000.000 tons of oil. The products of the Baku and Grozny fields are either shipped across the Caspian to the mouth of the Volga, or conveyed by rail or pipeline to the interior or to the Black .Sea ports, where there are great storage reservoirs. 1 Several years ago it was stated that approximately 12,000,000 tons a year were carried bv 15,000 tank cars on railways, 10,000,000 tons by 33 tankers and some hundreds of barges on the waterways and Caspian Sea, and 6,000,000 tons were conveyed by trunk pipelines aggregating about 2700 miles in length. The Baku-Batum pipeline follows tor 660 miles the route of the Transcaucasian railway, which runs along the valley of Kura on a gentle gradient nearly to Tiflis, lying at 1350 ft. For some distance from Baku the country is mainly barren, arid wastes due to low rainfall, intense summer heat, and gaseous and salty emanations. Violent dust storms sweep this region at all seasons. Beyond Tiflis the aseent is steeper until the Sarum Pass is reached at nearly 3000 ft., and green herbage and forests replace the bare hillsides. The ascent to Poti and Batum involves innumerable sharp curves along the valleys and gorges of the river Rion. The pipeline is furnished with 19 pumping stations spaced to secure the flow of oil to the divide, after which it /flows by gravity.