RUSSIAN PETROLEUM.

Mr Charles Marvin, who has already done much to familiarise English readers with the Russian petroleum industry and the extraordinarily prolific nature of the oil-wells at Baku, on the Caspian, has again returned to the subject in a pamphlet entitled The Coming Deluge of Russian Petroleum (Anderson & Co., Cockspur Street, London). As these wells, when transport facilities are more perfect, may seriously affect the home and American oil-trade, the facts brought out in Mr Marvin’s pamphlet are worthy of attention.

We learn that of the five hundred petroleum wells at Baku, the majority are situated on the Balakhani Plateau, eight or nine miles to the north of the town. The latest ‘spouter’ of Tagieff’s is, however, in a different locality, being situated on a promontory three miles to the south of Baku. Here Gospodin Tagieff began boring about three years ago. At first, the oil was slow to come, and at its best had never yielded more than sixteen thousand gallons a day. On the 27th September last, having touched oil at seven hundred and fourteen feet, the well began to spout oil with extraordinary force. ‘From the town, the fountain had the appearance of a colossal pillar of smoke, from the crest of which clouds of oil-sand detached themselves and floated away a great distance without touching the ground. Owing to the prevalence of southerly winds, the oil was blown in the direction of Bailoff Point, covering hill and dale with sand and petroleum, and drenching the houses of Bailoff, a mile and a half away. Nothing could be done to stop the outflow.’ It seems that the whole district was covered with oil, the outflow being at the rate of thousands of tuns a day, which filled up cavities, formed a lake, and on the fifth day began to escape into the sea. The square in front of the town-hall of Baku was drenched with petroleum. On the eighth day, the outflow reached the highest ever known—a rate of eleven thousand tuns, or two and three-quarter million gallons a day. ‘Thus,’ says Mr Marvin, ‘from a single orifice ten inches wide there spouted daily more oil than was being produced throughout the whole world, including therein the twenty-five thousand wells of America, the thousands of wells in Galicia, Roumania, Burmah, and other countries, and the shale-oil distilleries of Scotland and New South Wales.’ By the fifteenth day, those in charge had got the outflow so far under control as to restrict it to one quarter million gallons a day. It was certainly a misfortune that of the ten million gallons of oil ejected from Tagieff’s well, most of it was at first lost for want of storage accommodation.

The yield of oil at Baku is thus much ahead of the greatest product of the American wells. Nobel Brothers’ No. 18 Well has yielded, from a depth of seventeen hundred and twenty-one feet, nearly thirty million gallons of oil; and their No. 9 Well, from a depth of six hundred and forty-two feet, forty million gallons. Some of these wells are kept closed while oil is being sold at so cheap a rate. Against the assertion that the product of these wells may dry up and will not last very long, Mr Marvin says that there is ample historical evidence that petroleum has been flowing from the Apsheron peninsula for two thousand five hundred years, and that there seems more likelihood of the American wells drying up than those of Baku. Besides, the petroleum region of the Black Sea has scarcely been touched, and there the oil seems as plentiful as in America.

Owing to this prodigious outflow without a ready market, oil was selling there, in the beginning of October last, at one penny per sixteen gallons. The best refined petroleum or lamp-oil is sold at three-farthings a gallon. The production of crude petroleum last year exceeded four hundred and twenty million gallons; there are now one hundred and twenty firms with oil-refineries at Baku, which last year turned out one hundred and twenty million gallons of refined petroleum. The production in 1878 was only one and a quarter million gallons. The bulk-system of transport, as distinguished from carrying in barrels, first adopted in 1879, has had a tendency to revolutionise the trade, and now there are one hundred oil steamers on the Caspian. Some of these steamers have a capacity of carrying eight hundred tuns of oil each trip.

After extracting thirty per cent. of lamp-oil, and allowing ten per cent. for waste and dregs, the remaining sixty per cent., out of every hundred gallons, is used for lubricating and other purposes. Large quantities are imported by certain firms in London, for the manufacture of lubricating oils. Although thus exported, the supply of this waste or residue is so great that it has become the principal fuel in South-east Russia. Steamers purchase it at Baku at fourpence a tun, to be used as fuel. When sent by rail to Batoum, the price rises as high as one pound per tun, which is still cheaper than English coal. More than two hundred and fifty tank and many passenger steamers and locomotives now use this waste oil as fuel in place of coal. A tun of liquid fuel is said to do the work of two or three tons of coal: the chief advantage of its use consists in the fact that it can be turned off and on like gas; it is clean, and takes up very little bunker-space, a matter of great importance to steamers travelling to long distances. The Black Sea Steam Navigation Company, owning seventy-six steamers, intend to commence using this oil-refuse.

The chief outlets for the transport of Baku oil at present are by the Volga and the Transcaucasian Railway. A concession has been granted by the Russian government for laying down a petroleum pipe six hundred miles long for the carrying of the oil from Baku to a point on the Black Sea. The pipe must be large enough to carry one hundred and sixty millions of gallons of oil a year; and it is expected that three years will elapse before it is in working order. Meantime, the North Caucasus Railway will be completed in 1887, and it is expected that it will convey at least one hundred million gallons of oil to the port of Novorossisk, on the Black Sea. Thence it can be shipped in tank steamers to Europe.

We learn that a huge iron reservoir is being built at a remote spot in the outer harbour of Amsterdam for the storage of petroleum. It will be nearly thirty-three feet in diameter, and of the same depth, and is calculated to hold nearly one million seven hundred and forty thousand gallons. The petroleum will be brought direct from Russia in these tank steamers, and will be pumped out at Amsterdam into the tanks, thus saving the expense of filling and emptying casks, besides diminishing the risks of accidents.

Mr Marvin is of opinion that the world is consuming more oil yearly, and he calculates the daily consumption at two million gallons. Along with the cheapening of the oil have also come great improvements in the make of lamps, such as the Defries Safety-lamp, in which the receptacle for the oil is formed of brass. Mr Marvin makes the sensible suggestion, that as Russia is flooding the surrounding countries with oil, our manufacturers might supply the south-east of Europe with lamps, and thousands of cooking and warming stoves. It appears that there is not a country in Europe to which Baku oil is not now shipped, and the figures quoted show that American petroleum is being driven from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Mr Marvin is of opinion that the shale-oil industry of Scotland already shows signs of yielding to the competition of America, ‘and unless special circumstances should arise, must eventually be crushed by the rivalry of Russian petroleum, when imported in bulk.’ And apparently he has written his pamphlet in order to rouse British ship-owners, manufacturers, and capitalists to secure a share in the expansion and development of the Baku oil-trade.

[We have on more than one occasion advocated the use of oil in calming broken billows at sea, and thus saving a ship or boat which otherwise might succumb to the fury of the storm. Might it not, therefore, be worth while to make further experiments in the abandonment of costly coal, and fit up steamers with this comparatively cheap material, which, while driving the ship, might in a heavy seaway save her, if the oil be allowed to ooze from bags made fast to windward? The use of oil at sea during rough weather cannot be overestimated.—Ed.]