HISTORY OF RUSSIAN OIL AND GAS ENGINEERING

Abstract

Oil and gas engineering has always served oneof the most important sources of Russian wealthindependently from any social system. The inexhaustiblewells of Russian oil and gas in Tatarstan, Tyumen andSiberia (and earlier – in Azerbaijan) were always the mostreliable sources to pay any debts and to provide itspopulation with a fairly good level of life. The survey ofnatural reservoirs was always a priority-driven problemsupported and funded by the state and independentexplorers. In recent times many traditional ways to extractoil and gas and to provide other countries with these sourcesof energy have suffered a lot of unforeseen and undesirabledrastic changes caused by the desintegration of the USSRfollowed by the formation of new independent states. Theseprocesses required the total revision of existing network ofpipe-lines and oil plants distribution to let alone thecomplicated political aspects of this problem..Index Terms ⎯ Russian engineering school, history of oilengineering in Russia, Russian oil and gas prospecting