An avalanche-like decrease in shipments can be explained by the dramatic increase of railway's workload as well as by reorganization of USSR industry too meet the needs of the war. Soviet railways had to provide for evacuation and frontline needs, so it was hard to deliver necessary equipment to Azerbaijan. So the governing body of Azerbaijani oil industry had to decentralize the shipments and rely on North and South Caucasian resources. That, however, didn't have expected results. Azerbaijani oil plants had to obtain necessary metal by collecting scrap metal.
A great deal of attention was also attributed to replacing unavailable materials needed for production process by substitutes at hand. The number of people involved in oil processing industry on the Abshor peninsula decreased considerably. Major part of those who worked for 'Azneftkombinat' oil plant were either drafted or re-assigned to help establish oil processing in the East of the country. If staff lists of Baku oil plant dated from July, 1941 show 209 drilling brigades, in April, 1942 only 89 remained. Due to all abovementioned reasons the speed of oil extraction and new oil wells drilling decreased dramatically.
In January Azerbaijani plants produced 50% of all Soviet oil, by the end of the year the figure was 40%. It is important to remember that not all oil wells are equally rich, so Azerbaijani government had to take a great risk by stopping reconnaissance drilling and making emphasis on extracting oil from unpromising wells. In 1940 oil output from such wells constituted only 28% of all production, in 1941 it constituted 55%. As for reconnaissance drilling, the number of such wells decreased by 20%.
If we take all factors into consideration, the status of oil processing complex in Azerbaijan during the first year of the Great Patriotic War looks ambiguous. If we'll consider only the year's totals, the situation doesn't look alarming at all. Month-to-month analysis, however, reveals that growth was obtained only in the first half of the year, when the war hadn't broken out yet, and when battling started the figures fell drastically.
All in all, the first year of the war was extremely hard for works of Azerbaijani oil industry. Most of them were drafted or re-assigned to the Far East. Almost any shipments of necessary equipment stopped, while some of the machinery was relocated to the Far East. Azerbaijani oil plant had to look for alternative sources of equipment and raw materials, use old equipment and surrogates. Nevertheless the achievements of the first half-year made it possible to draw positive totals of the year. However, during the second year of the war all risky decisions made by managers of Azeri oil industry in the crisis situation of the first days of the war had inevitable feedbacks - and that is the subject of the next article.
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Mikhail Mukhin
