By Vestnik Kavkaza
This year the prominent Baku native and scientist, Sabit Orudzhev, would have celebrated his 100th birthday. He was the minister of the gas industry of the USSR from 1972 to 1981. His ministry raised the USSR's gas production to a record level – 800 billion cubic meters annually. This record hasn’t been beaten yet, and Orudzhev remains the only man in the world to head a ministry which produced so much gas. Vestnik Kavkaza publishes a series of recollections of Orudzhev’s colleagues about him and his reforms of the Soviet gas industry.
Orudzhev introduced changes in drilling works. In 1979, a gas wells drilling association called Tyumenburgaz was created. New types of drill bits were actively introduced and a new battery-operated drilling method was developed. Thanks to these innovations, by 1980 the amount of drilling was 10 times more than in 1972. Parallel to that automated control systems were developing rapidly. By 1980, a departmental system of management of the gas industry had been established in the country, which provided a subsystem of automated supervisory control and an automated management system for plants. Development and introduction of new pumping units was also initiated under the leadership of Orudzhev. He emphasized the widespread use of high-power units, including wind-driven and water-driven ones.
"The minister often came to Urengoy, the former head of Urengoygazdobycha, Ivan Nikonenko, says. - We tried to put him in a warm hotel room. The weather conditions are not as nice here - biting cold with winds abruptly followed by thaw and vice versa. But even a wooden hotel, purged from all sides, is not the best place. On one of his visits, I asked him why did he have such a big, but seemingly light fibre suitcase? He gave me a subtle smile and said that there is only one, but very valuable thing there – a warm terry sweater. Then I realized that he was not hoping to be comfortable. That time we put Sabit Atayevich in the warmest room. In the evening we discussed business matters for a long time, finished late. And during the night, unfortunately, the wind changed and started blowing at a speed of 15 meters per second, and the temperature dropped to - 40 degrees. Orudzhev’s room became cold, but the hotel employees hesitated to invite him to move to the opposite side of the building. Sabit Atayevich also did not bother anyone. In the morning I found Sabit Atayevich around the sink. He was standing in his terry sweater with a skullcap pulled over his ears, and with both hands holding on to the dryer – he was trying to get warm. Later, having been warmed with hot tea, Sabit Atayevich admitted: "Imagine, for the first time in my life I heard my soul trembling! Make it warm next time. You northerners are easy with cold, but I'm a southern man, I like when it is warm."
Sabit Atayevich had great optimism and love for life. He had a very hard life. And even when he was honored with the Hero of Socialist Labour, he told us that the award was made out of small stars of the people who were directly working on rigs and pipelines. And in this he was right, of course, but we should not neglect his great contribution in the development of the industry."
"After working for 36 years in the oil industry, during the first winter of 1972-1973 Orudzhev was able to understand the problems of the gas industry in such manner that they became familiar and most important to him," the head of the Central Supervisory Control of the Unified Gas Supply System of the USSR of the Gas Ministry, Vladimir Khalatin, says. "Sabit Atayevich valued the collective mind, but demanded unconditional implementation of adopted decisions regardless of whether they had been accepted collectively or individually. With the appointment of Orudzhev, a number of organizational measures for restructuring the management of the central office as well as of its operating divisions were adopted.
Already in 1972, the Minister decided to make compressor stations in Ukraine, Stavropol, Krasnodar and Gazli part of gas production associations. This allowed leaders of gas production associations to influence the volume of gas production more effectively, which largely depended on the work of the main compressor stations. The organization introduced by Orudzhev, remains in force even today.
The ministry started to create new units for the construction, equipment repair, as well as plants for the production of spare parts for industries and compressor stations, complete plant bases and other production units.
On the initiative of Sabit Atayevich, the ministry extended research tasks of research and institutes. Later, research institutions and their branches, as well as gas facilities design institutes were founded in all gas regions. Orudzhev was a wise leader, who thought ahead and knew how to select and educate his employees. At the same time, I cannot say that my relationship with Sabit Atayevich was simple or extremely pleasant.
In November 1972, Orudzhev participated for the first time in the meeting of the Scientific and Technical Council of the Ministry of the Gas Industry, of which he was a chairman. At that meeting our views on increasing the capacity of underground gas storages were different. I publicly opposed the opinions of Sabit Atayevich about the uselessness of building a large number of UGS. For the next two years, I received so many criticisms from the minister that I even considering leaving the ministry for another job. But it was not long before Orudzhev became one of the most fervent advocates and supporters of the creation of gas storages in various regions of our country. "Gas should be pumped into the ground day and night" was his favorite expression. In 1977, I became the head of the Central Supervisory Directorate. The powers and obligations of the CSD at that time were considerably expanded and it even had to forecast the development of the entire gas pipeline system. At all stages Orudzhev was careful to meet the plan for providing gas to consumers. Often the weather dictated its own terms. On such occasions,
Orudzhev had a clear system of relations with the country, republics, regions and all departments. Orudzhev was often merciless to heads, disrupting plans, but was never angry with ordinary workers, and sometimes explained the faults of production facilities were down to poor working conditions. I remember that on his visit to the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline, he was given a proposal for improving the work of the pipeline which was concerned only with technical issues. In response, the minister stated emphatically that, without improving the living conditions of workers, one cannot talk about improving the efficiency of compressor stations of the system of gas pipelines. "Think of the conditions in which people work – there is nothing to buy, nowhere to go, everywhere there is dust. But they are not convicts," he said.
Orudzhev personally argued in Goskomtrud about the need to raise wages for employees who work in remote areas and harsh climatic conditions. It seemed that his task as minister at the beginning was to at least keep the industry efficient. But Sabit Atayevich set constructive goals and was able to reach them."
To be continued
