OIL: Russian Wildcatting

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What is the condition of Russia's oil industry? How much petroleum is being produced? This week Dr. Leonid P. Smirnov, former chief Arctic geologist for the Soviet Union, gives some of the answers in the Socony-Vacuum publication, The Flying Red Horse. As the top oil explorer in Russia from 1925 to 1942, Dr. Smirnov discovered the Arctic fields in the Taimyr-Lena area, and the rich Second Baku basin, which stretches from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic. But in 1949, disillusioned with Communism because "I saw what it was in practice and didn't like it," he escaped from Germany's Eastern zone, eventually made his way to the U.S.

The bureaucracy under which Russian oilmen are forced to work is so top-heavy, writes Smirnov, that Russians guardedly refer to it as "one with a plow and seven with spoons." Bringing in a dry hole is a criminal offense punishable by banishment to Siberia. On geological expeditions, food is always so short that to feed a field party of 25 a manager is forced to "add another 25 'dead souls' to his roster, thus getting food for 50 men, which is barely enough to feed his crew of 25."

Quota System. The Russian oil fields were developed slowly, says Smirnov, because of lack of equipment: "Oil-drilling crews use a copy of an American rig, but it is in short supply . . . Drilling is done according to official rates. In the Second Baku fields, for example, the government ordered that each crew drill 2,100 ft. per month in the Pennsylvanian-type limestone. [Then] a well-trained crew of speedup specialists [was moved in and] with ideal working conditions and new equipment drilled 4,800 ft. in one month. Now every crew in the Second Baku must drill 4,800 ft. per month."

The Soviet Union wastes not one pint of its precious oil; almost all of it goes to the military: "The average Soviet citizen cannot even buy gasoline; he may buy only kerosene for his cookstove, and benzine for his cigarette lighter."

The Soviets are expanding their oil production most rapidly in the Arctic: "In the far north the Soviet air bases, the navy and the army are now independent of the rest of Russia for their oil and gasoline. Refinery equipment, which the U.S. shipped to Russia under lend-lease, is in operation . . . Production now may be as high as 3,500,000 bbls. per year. About 40% of Russia's oil comes from the Baku region in the Caucasus . . . [which, with] oil from the Ukraine and from the satellites, supplies the Red armies in the West."

Oil in the East. In the Second Baku area, which Smirnov discovered, 20 refineries and 1,000 miles of pipeline are operating. One refinery, transported from Germany to Irkutsk, has a yearly capacity of 10.5 million gals. (250,000 bbls.) of high-quality aviation gasoline. In the Far East, says Smirnov, the most important oil area is on Sakhalin Island, which has proved reserves of about 350 million bbls., and may actually have ten times as much. Before World War II, Sakhalin's production was about 3,500,000 bbls. a year. Now, Smirnov estimates, "it could be as high as 21 million bbls."