No. 2, 2009
Olga Aleksandrova
FATHER OF PERM OIL
On the 135th anniversary of the birth of the famous Russian geologist, Prof. Pavel Preobrazhensky
At the beginning of this year, the Russian geological community marked the 135th anniversary of the birth of the famous Russian geologist, Prof. Pavel Preobrazhensky (1874-1944), the discoverer of oil in the Prikamye region.
Early life
Pavel Preobrazhensky was born in January 1874 into a priest's family in the small district town of Demyansk in the Novgorod Guberniya. After finishing the Tashkent Grammar School with a Gold Medal, in 1892 he entered the mathematical physics faculty at Moscow University, but two years later transferred to the St. Petersburg Mining Institute. This decision was largely connected with his fascination with geology, which he wanted to study directly in the field and not quiet university lecture halls.
The study course of a highly qualified mining specialist at the Institute covered the most diverse disciplines. Alongside higher mathematics, physics and chemistry, the students studied geography, botany, zoology and other subjects. General engineering disciplines were also studied extensively: analytical and applied mechanics, hydraulics, and steam engine course. And, of course, the main place in the study program belonged to the geological disciplines. Pavel Preobrazhensky's acquaintance with the main rock-forming minerals, types of rocks' modes of arrangement and structures as well as their mineral and chemical composition, grew into a genuine need and striving for further and greater knowledge.
Student Preobrazhensky's devotion to and fascination with geology were noted and, after successfully graduating from the Mining Institute, he was put at the disposal of the Chief Mining Administration of the Mining Department and subsequently "sent to make a geological study of the gold-bearing areas of Siberia."
Mining engineer Preobrazhensky worked for almost ten years in the Lena gold-bearing region. In 1907, he was appointed Court Counselor and awarded the Order of St. Stanislav II, and was then invited to work on the Geological Committee of Russia.
Twists of fate
On the Geological Committee of Russia, Pavel Preobrazhensky continued surveying the territory of Siberia, drew up a geological map of the Semirechensk region and published a whole series of scientific works. In 1913, he was made State Counselor. He was subsequently appointed head of the Siberian branch of the Geological Committee of Russia.
From the beginning of World War I, he did his patriotic duty in becoming the representative of the All-Russia Union of Cities on the interdepartmental Defense Congress. From 1914 to 1916, he headed a medical detachment of the All-Russia Union of Cities on the Western Front.
After the February Revolution of 1917, which overthrew Czar Nicholas II, Pavel Preobrazhensky was invited to join the Provisional Government as Deputy Minister for Education, dealing with development of vocational education in the country. He worked in this post right up until the Bolshevik Revolt in October 1917, after which he returned to work on the Geological Committee of Russia. In 1918, he was sent to carry out geological surveying of the Turgay Region, but never made it to his destination, finding himself in the thick of the confused events taking place in the Volga area and Western Siberia.
In November 1918, in Omsk, Admiral Alexander Kolchak (1872-1920) formed the so-called Omsk Government, headed by the lawyer Pyotr Vologodsky (1863-1928), and Pavel Preobrazhensky was offered the post of head of the Ministry for Public Education that was set up. By order of the Supreme Ruler Admiral Kolchak of May 6, 1919, he was appointed Minister of Public Education of the Russian Government. On November 10, 1919, the Government relocated to Irkutsk where, in January 1920, Admiral Kolchak relinquished power. After the Red Army detachments entered the city, Pavel Preobrazhensky was arrested together with the other members of the Government and imprisoned in Omsk. The investigation was concluded and the death sentence anticipated.
Yet his friends and colleagues from the Geological Committee came to his assistance, appealing for mitigation of this extreme sentence.
Discovery of the Solikamsk potassium deposits
In July 1920, Pavel Preobrazhensky was sent by convoy to Perm, as stated in the Extraordinary Revolutionary Tribunal ruling, "to serve his sentence of forced labor until the end of the war."
At the very first meeting with the rector of Perm University Nikolay Ottokar, Pavel Preobrazhensky was offered the position of lecturer in mineralogy. Two years later, the control exercised by the judicial authorities was mitigated and he was confirmed in the post of professor in the Chair of Mineralogy and, from 1924, he headed two departments at the same time - geology and mineralogy. Also during these years, he read a course of lectures on geology at the Urals Mining Institute in Sverdlovsk.
In 1924, the Urals Department of the Geological Committee asked him to study the archives of the former owners of the Perm mining and salt production works, the businessmen Stroganov, Lazarev, Ryazantsev and others, to find any information about minerals in the region. Soon afterwards, Prof. Pavel Preobrazhensky gave a comprehensive report to the associates of the Urals Department of the Geological Committee, justifying the promising nature of the Solikamsk area with respect to potassium salts and proposed a plan of exploration drilling.
Although his sentence term had done to an end and he could have taken up the post of Senior Geologist in the Section for Surveying of Non-ore Minerals of the Leningrad Department of the Geological Committee, he decided to finish his business in Perm, i.e., to carry out exploration drilling where the previous Solikamsk works had been located and, in the spring of 1925, geological exploration was launched. He managed to obtain a Kaliks drill rig, and a mobile steam power unit called a locomobile was delivered from Leningrad. The required drilling equipment and tools came from the Caucasus and the Urals. It was just as difficult to determine the location of the first well. By generalizing and analyzing all the geological data, Prof. Pavel Preobrazhensky chose for this purpose the outskirts of the town of Solikamsk on the banks of the Usolka, which flows into the Kama.
At the beginning of September 1925, drilling was launched of the first well. On the night of October 6, 1925, the first drilled well discovered, between the depths of 91.7 and 92.3 m, a thick seam of potassium salts (this was secondary sylvinite with a KCl content of 17.9%) and well No. 2, located 1.5 km away, revealed a potassium deposit of over 110 m. Subsequently, all the wells drilled in 1926, one after the other indicated the presence of big potassium deposits. That was how the famous Verkhnekamskoye potassium salts deposit was discovered. Pavel Preobrazhensky said later that the drilling produced "astounding results": in both Solikamsk and Berezniki, 19 wells revealed major seams of carnallite and sylvinite.
The Perm oil sensation
The drilling was carried out under difficult conditions. In his journal, Prof. Preobrazhensky wrote: "The drill team was issued short fur coats and felt boots in cold weather and warm log huts were built close to the rigs for the workers to warm themselves up. During the coldest weather, dropping to minus 48 degrees, drilling work had to be suspended for several days."
In order to determine more precisely the boundaries of the discovered deposit, Preobrazhensky chose the twentieth drill site in Verkhne-Chusovskiye Gorodki, where cooking salt had been mined as far back as the time of the Stroganovs.
On October 18, 1928, the team under drill foreman Prokopy Pozdnyakov began drilling this well on the bank of the River Rassoshka, the place from which Ataman Ermak supposedly left to conquer Siberia. A large part of the work was carried out by the column drilling method, with the rock core being raised to the surface. At a depth of 155 m, the drilling passed through rocks where there might have been potassium salts, but no signs of these were found. Yet Preobrazhensky insisted on continuing the work and, on March 30, 1929, at a depth of 328-331 m, a column of rock was raised that had cracks and signs of oil and from which gas was discharged. Moreover, on April 16, 1929, from a depth of 365-371 m, rock was obtained with the greatest petroleum impregnation, which was registered in the drilling log as "an abundant film of oil with bubbles of gas." That was how the "big oil of Prikamye" gave the first signs of itself.
The news of the oil prospects of the Prikamye area soon reached Moscow and, on May 7, 1929, the Presidium of the Supreme Council for the National Economy adopted a Resolution on Oil Exploration in the Urals. Minutes No. 17 of the meeting stressed: "To take note that, during drilling of an exploratory well by the Geological Committee for potassium salts on the River Chusovaya, 10 versts from Komarikhinskaya railway station, the existence of porous limestones containing oil and gas was discovered at a depth of 350 to 400 m... To note the tremendous significance of the discovery of oil in the mid-Urals, in the area where a number of metal works are located. To recognize it as necessary to undertake extensive prospecting for new oil fields in the Urals."
A telegram sent by the North Caucasus territorial committee of miners to the Urals Regional Committee in May 1929 stated: "The newly discovered oil region is of exceptional significance for the Soviet Union. In a desire to develop the region rapidly, in conjunction with Grozneft, we hereby establish patronage over the new region. We send the requisite equipment and 49 skilled workers. Send us a telegram of your greatest needs. We will do all we can to help."
The first testing of well No. 20, carried out in June, showed that the flowing production rate of the well was 40 tons a day. On August 15, 1929, the well was started up and a new number - No. 101 assigned to it. It should be noted that, over the 11 years of its existence (up until October 1940), it produced about 8,000 tons of oil.
Highly appraising the announcement from Perm, the well-known oil scientist, Academician Ivan Gubkin, stressed: "Here we may have oil reserves of inestimable value to industry. On the basis of preliminary data, of all alone there is undoubtedly a quantity of industrial significance on the slopes of the Urals."
When the first drilling office in the East of Russia, Uralneft, was set up in 1929, headed by the experienced drilling expert Roman Buchatsky, a broad front of drilling work was launched at Verkhne-Chusovskiye Gorodki. Production wells were started up one after another. By the winter of 1929-1930, 29 wells were in operation in the vicinity of Verkhne-Chusovskiye Gorodki, two in the area of Kizel-Gubakha and one each in Cherdyn, Usolye, Shumkovo and Ust-Kishert. The Soviet government highly appraised the activities of Pavel Preobrazhensky and in 1932 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
In the following years, Pavel Preobrazhensky concentrated his scientific activities on developing a methodology for seeking and surveying salt deposits, initiated application of gravity prospecting for salt deposit structures, supported comprehensive use of sales for extraction of bromine, boron, rubidium and other chemical elements. In 1935, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (geology and mineralogy). In 1937, he participated as a delegate in the 17th session of the International Geological Congress, held in Moscow. He became one of the organizers of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Mineral Salt Production and, from 1939 to 1941, he worked as Chief Geologist of this scientific institution.
During the period of 1943-1944, he held the post of Deputy Director of the State Institute for Mining and Chemical Raw Materials in Moscow and in January 1944, was awarded the Order of Merit. Prof. Pavel Preobrazhensky died on September 10, 1944 in Moscow and his funeral was attended by colleague geologists, lecturers and students of the Moscow Mining Institute.
Stressing the special significance of Pavel Preobrazhensky's contribution to the discovery of the Perm oil, the well-known Russian geologist, Prof. Pavel Sofronitsky, noted: "The discovery of the Verkhne-Chusovskaya oil gave an impetus to development of oil exploration between the Volga and the Urals. The oil industry of the Perm Region began with the Verkhne-Chusovskiye production units."
