No. 1, 2004

The very first mention of the Ukhta oil is found in the Dvina Chronicle dating back to the 15th century. It refers to a local chud' tribe who “scooped a thick flammable liquid” from a river named Ukhta. Later on, the Ukhta oil was mentioned in a book published in 1692 in Amsterdam under the title Northern and Eastern Tataria. In it Nicholas Witsen, a member of the Dutch legation, writes: “About one and a half miles to the East there is a

Czar Peter's orders

In the spring of 1721 one Grigory Cherepanov, a Mezen resident and ore prospector, informed the Berg-Kollegium (Mining Department) that he had found an “oil spring” in the Pustoozersky Uyezd (district) of the Arkhangelsk Guberniya (region). This fact was reported to Peter the Great who ordered that the oil source be carefully surveyed and that its finder be given an award of six rubles “to encourage his further prospecting for ores.” On May 5, 1721, the Berg-Kollegium issued instructions concerning the “oil spring” on the Ukhta river in the Pustoozersky Uyezd. It was to be properly inspected and a sample was to be taken from it and turned over for testing to a specialist, such as a qualified druggist in the Arkhangelsk Guberniya or “some other knowledgeable person.” He was to do the testing immediately and to write a report on the results, including recommendations on its possible production and profitability. Both the sample and the report were to be sent to the Berg-Kollegium in St. Petersburg for an expert appraisal.

In 1724, the oil “spring” on the Ukhta was explored for a second time. The exploration was conducted by Captain Bosargin of the Arkhangelsk Guberniya office. The same year, eight large bottles containing Ukhta oil were delivered to St. Petersburg. On Czar Peter's orders this oil was sent to Holland and France. Regrettably, Russian historians did not discover any documents yet shedding light on what happened to that consignment of northern oil after that.

Twenty one years later, the Berg-Kollegium authorized Fyodor Pryadunov, a citizen of Arkhangelsk, to start what was Russia's first oil-producing works. It was to be sited “on a vacant lot near the river Ukhta in the Pustoozersky Uyezd of the Arkhangelsk Guberniya.” He was instructed to ensure uninterrupted operation of the works with his own capital and to sell the oil it produced.

There is a detailed account of that oil-producing facility in K. Molchanov's book entitled A Description of the Arkhangelsk Guberniya, Its Towns, Monasteries and Other Places of Interest (1813). He writes that an oil plant was built on the Ukhta river in the vicinity of Izhmyn. The works comprised a square wooden framework of logs built right over the spouting oil “spring.” This shell consisted of 13 horizontal rows of logs, six of which were put below the ground surface onto the bottom of the well, the rest rising above the ground. Placed within the wooden framework was a tub with a narrow bottom which had on opening in its bottom to admit the oil floating on the surface of the water. At one end there was a cutwater to protect the structure from the fast current.

Wishing to secure an authoritative opinion of Western specialists regarding his undertaking, Fyodor Pryadunov sent samples of the Ukhta crude and processed oil to Hamburg, informing the Berg-Kollegium accordingly.

A “certificate” issued on May 6, 1747, by two German researchers, D.M. Miller and M.D. Lossau, says that after conducting tests with the Ukhta oil they concluded that it could be used as ointment for the external treatment of cold-provoked mucous discharges, dislocations, chills, asthenia and dull pains in the joints.

After Fyodor Pryadunov died in March 1753, the oil woks changed hands several times. Its last owner, from 1782 on, was a commoner named Yakov Morozov. He managed the company for several years until a major fire destroyed everything. During the rest of the 18th century no attempts were made to restore the plant.

It was only 50 years later that prospecting for oil was resumed. The first major geological exploration of the Ukhta region was conducted in 1843 by an expedition headed by geologist Alexander Keizerling. They compiled the first geological map of the Timan Range and described the Ukhta oil-bearing region. The members of the expedition made a trip up and down the Pechora. Merchant Vasily Latkin was one of them. In 1846 he published a book entitled Scientific Observations Made During a Trip to the Pechora Area in 1843, in which he summed up the results of the expedition.

Merchant Sidorov's initiative

Eighteen years later, prospecting for oil was taken up by Mikhail Sidorov, a well-known Russian entrepreneur. That started a new chapter in the history of the Ukhta oil, which Sidorov dealt with in his book About Oil in Northern Russia (1882).

It all began in 1864 when the forestry officer Pyotr Gladyshev wrote a letter to the Krasnoyarsk merchant 1st Guild, Mikhail Sidorov, in which he informed the “merchant” of certain sites in the Mezen Uyezd, Arkhangelsk Guberniya, where he had discovered seepages of oil. The same year, together with land surveyor Yeremeyev and former surveyor Lebedev, Mikhail Sidorov went on a trip to the Mezen District and inspected the promising places mentioned in Gladyshev's letter, which were in the vicinity of the Ukhta river. What he saw there encouraged him, and he wrote an application to authorities, requesting permission to acquire three plots of oil-bearing land. In his letter he expressed the hope that “the Government would show him, the first such bidder, sympathy in his difficult undertaking in that austere country, with no population and no roads.”

After the many hindrances standing in his way were overcome, Mikhail Sidorov's request was granted on August 9, 1867. He was permitted, during a 12-year period, to develop an oil-bearing plot in the area he had indicated in his letter, in the Mezen District, some 40 kilometers from the place where the Ukhta flows into the Izhma. His permit involved the payment of a tax which was standard for the Arkhangelsk Guberniya and which was specified accordingly. However, almost a year went by before all the bureaucratic obstacles were cleared away and work on the oil-bearing plots could be started. In the midsummer of 1868 a team of workers led by P. Lopatin started preliminary work on the left bank of the Ukhta directly opposite its confluence with its tributary, the Neft-Yol. A few months later the team completed the sinking of what was the first production oil well in Northern Russia. By 1872 the well was 37 meters deep, and by 1873 its depth reached 61 meters. Every day a bucket of oil (10 kg) was scooped out of it. In 1872, the drilling operations were supervised by A. Lebedev, the ex-land surveyor. Employed at the oil field were 40 workers familiar with drilling as well as with mechanical, blacksmith's and cooper's work.

Admiration of Professor Hoefer

In 1872, the Ukhta oil field was visited by Professor Hans Hoefer (1843-1924), a noted geologist who took part in a polar expedition led by the Austrian explorer Count Wilczek. This expedition sailed on a yacht out of the Norwegian port of Tromso and, after visiting Novaya Zemlya (New Land) and Spitsbergen, arrived in the Pechora port. On Mikhail Sidorov's invitation, the Austrian travelers moved to his iron-bodied steamship Georgy whose boilers burned Ukhta oil. The steamship had several boats in tow because it could sail along the Pechora only as far as the shallow, called Bedovaya; further on, using these boats, the travelers sailed along the Izhma and Ukhta, and finally reached Sidorov's oil field. There Professor Hoefer inspected the drilling operations and saw a “drawing of the cross section of the strata.” He recognized the Ukhta oil field as dependable, and highly evaluated the work done by A. Lebedev, head of the drilling operations.

Subsequently, Mikhail Sidorov gave a detailed account of the Austrians' visit to the Ukhta region in the News of the Russian Geographic Society for 1873. He wrote in part: “Professor Hoefer gave many useful recommendations concerning ways to make drilling operations easier and preparing a site for tanks in case of an oil gusher. He found our smiths' work quite satisfactory, but the method of connecting drill rods outdated.” There were no tools for threading drill rods at the oil field. Hans Hoefer was surprised by the fact that A. Lebedev, a common Arkhangelsk peasant who had no education as a mining specialist, supervised the drilling operations like an experienced engineer.

A few years after his visit to the Ukhta region, petroleum geology became uppermost in Professor Hoefer's scientific activity. In 1876, he visited the World Fair in Philadelphia, and then the famous Pennsylvanian oil fields. The next year he published a book on U.S. oil industry, in which he discussed methods of combating the flooding of oil fields and substantiated the theory of a relation between oil pools and anticlinal folds.

In 1910, Professor Hoefer moved to Vienna and engaged in scientific research as well as publishing articles and books, mostly on the subject of oil.

Undoubtedly, Hans Hoefer's book Petroleum and Its Derivatives is his most important work. It was published and republished four times in Germany, and in 1908 it was translated into Russian. It still is an excellent reference book on the history of the oil industry in different countries.

Today we can say that merits of first oil trail blazers should be given there due by the present generation of Russian oilmen.