Word: smirnov
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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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...
...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...
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...
...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...
...Russians promptly stocked up on bread, salami and potatoes, holed up in their quarters at the Cheesemakers' Inn, directly across the street from U.S. Army Intelligence headquarters in Salzburg, and prepared for a long siege. Colonel Alexander Smirnov, the burly chief of the mission, announced moodily that he could not leave until he received orders from Russian headquarters in Vienna. As far as personal relations were concerned, the Russians had gotten along fine in Salzburg - particularly Senior Lieut. Vasily Pivovarov, who had acquired quite a reputation among U.S. Army officers because he always breakfasted on six eggs, four sausages...