RUSSIA'S PETROLEUM KINGS. Something About the Firm That Controls the Oil Trade.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 194, 12 March 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

RUSSIA'S PETROLEUM KINGS. Something About the Firm That Controls the Oil Trade.

The cable despatch reporting that the Standard Oil Company intended to buy the oil interests of Nobel Brothers of Rueeia did not look plausible, and was promptly denied If it were true it would indeed be noteworthy, for Nobel Brothers are the kings of the Russian petroleum industry. It was they who revolutionised the oil business at Baku and made the Caspian petroleum a formidable rival of the American product. The Nobel family are Swedes, aad they have a remarkable record, The father invented a torpedo, which he sold to Russia for a large cum of money. Hie son Alfred, an experienced chemist, is famous as the inventor of dynamite. Two other eon 3, Ludwig and Albert, created the petroleum industry of Baku in its present enlarged form. Eleven years ago, when they went to Baku, the town and its oil refineries were scarcely known. This is what the Nobels did to make Baku and ita petroleum famous. Oil at that time was delivered to the different refineries from the wells, twelve miles distant, in ox carts. The Nobels startled old fogies by building a pipe line, and today there are sixty miles of pipe and an average daily discharge of 2,000,000 gallons of crude oil at Baku. Their second reform was an improved method of boring, which doubled the yield of oil. Their third innovation was to build cistern steamers on the Caspian, which carried the refined pro* duct ia bulk up tbo great Volga river, thus superseding the clumpy and expensive system of transport in barrels. Now oil is constantly being pumped on board Nobel Brothers' steamers at Baku, and the entire load of 200,000 gallons is shipped in four and a half hours. Then the Nobels organised a system for the cheap transportation of their oil far and wide in "Europe. The product is pumped from the cistern steamers into tank cars, each carrying ten tona of cil. This one firm i& now constantly running sixty oil trains, with twenty-five cars in each train. Their fifth innovation was also a startling novelty. During the winter months no oil can be carried into Russia over the frozea Volga. This is the very time, of course, when the greatest quantity of oil is needed. The Nobels therefore built in various parts of the empire twenty-six great storage depots, which are co large that they will hold Russia's entire oil supply for a yoar. In the summer these depots are filled with oil, which is distributed by cartloads during the winter months all over the empire. The Nobels' oil is sold largely in Germany, and in Russia the firm is now selling 54,000,000 gallons a year. Here is an illustration of the perfect system to which these men have reduced their great business. In the office at St. Petersburg hangs a large scale map of the Russian empire. It is the business of one of the clerks to mark on these maps with little flags the position of all the oil trains in accordance with the telegraphic information he is constantly receiving. The members of the firm are therefore able at any moment to tell the exact position of each of their sixty oil trains.