After the discovery of oil fields, Baku became a special place, where various economic and political interests of international coalitions, industrial clans and leaders were concentrated and clashed. VK begins publishing chapters from the book by Ismail Agakishiev "History of the Baku Oil Industry and the Second Oil Boom (second half of the 19th century - beginning of the 20thcentury.)". The book presents a historical analysis of the emergence and current state of the Azerbaijani oil industry.
These organizational shake-ups of the after-war years reflected the constant reorganization of the management system. The results of this for the oil industry were dubious. Despite the systematic non-fulfillment of the plan in oil extraction, its production was constantly growing throughout the 1950s. By the turn of the 1960s, oil extraction almost reached the pre-war level. This was a consequence of the enormous effort of the workers, additional motivation and, to some extent, the introduction of technological innovations.
Another factor was the improved professional education of those employed in the oil sector, received in the specialized institutes and colleges. The Azerbaijani Industrial Institute, which until 1953 was named after Beria and later after Azizbekov, was once of the sources of the qualified specialists. In 1951-1954, 1200 of its graduates went to the republic's oil enterprises. In 1955-1956 another 968 specialists were assigned to the oil plants. This number includes those who graduated as part-time students, which means that they were working in the industry already before and during their studies. Thus, in 1959, 146 workers in the branch were students at universities and 429 in colleges. By December 1, 1960, the oil industry of Azerbaijan employed 4580 engineers and technicians with university degrees.
Despite this success, the role of Azerbaijan in the overall balance of the USSR oil industry continued to decline. More and more oil was coming from the Tatar and Bashkir region and Kazakhstan, while new reserves of black gold were discovered in Western Siberia. Of the oil personnel trained in Azerbaijan, who, as a rule, started their careers there, one later played a significant role in developing the new oil fields in the other regions of the USSR. Azerbaijani oil technicians contributed to the oil industry of the whole country. Thus, the development of the oil industry in Tyumen is connected to Farman Salmanov, who would later became a Hero of Socialist Labour and one of the leaders of the industry. The decline of the absolute figures of oil production in Azerbaijan started in the 1960s. First of all, the central Soviet government started to lose interest in Azerbaijani oil due to the rise of oil extraction elsewhere in the country. In 1959 the “Oil Fund” was closed, which cut bonuses to workers in the oil industry. The financing of technological innovation and investment in the branch was also limited. This led to a reduction in oil extraction. It is characteristic that from the 1960s to the 1980s the annual statistical reports in Azerbaijan omitted the data on the oil produced.
According to unofficial sources, the volume of extracted oil decreased from 20 million to 12 million tons. It was, however, thought that the oil potential of Azerbaijan was exhausted. The new large-scale exploration and improved technology of drilling required substantial investment that the state did not want to make. In this situation the Azerbaijani leadership was looking for alternative means to support the oil complex. This didn't only concern the speed of oil extraction. The main problem was that the entire industrial development of the republic, including chemistry, oil chemistry and machine-building branches, relied on oil production. Most of the plants were connected to oil extraction, either using the products of extraction or producing the machines necessary for it. This was the case for the biggest plants of the machine-building branch – the Kishlinsky plant, the Schmidt plant and the “Baku Worker”, as well as the majority of the chemical enterprises of Baku and Sumgait. All these plants required raw materials and machines. The oil-related branches started to receive special attention at this moment.
In the 1960s Heydar Aliyev became the leader of Azerbaijan. After analysis of the situation in the republic's oil industry, the strategy of its development was considerably corrected according to objective realities and possibilities. And this led to success. The emphasis on the branches connected to the oil industry not only revived the oil sector but defined the economy of the republic.
