Production - Foreign - Russian Oil Industry in 1941

The World War I1 spread to Russia on June 22, 1941, when the German Armies began their invasion. The Soviet industries, which were already engaged in a tremendous armament program, further accelerated the flow of munitions, and equipment and supplies for all purposes not directly military were either entirely eliminated or reduced to an absolute minimum. With the occupation by German armies of the Dniepr and Kharkov industrial regions, this trend was necessarily further accentuated. The oil industry of Russia, in consequence, was left to rely more and more upon itself, its own very limited manufacturing facilities, extensive repair shops and probably much used equipment out of order stacked in the warehouses. All evidence available to date points to the fact that the new situation not only did not affect the production either quantitatively or qualitatively, but, on the contrary, caused a larger flow of much needed fuels to the country's war machine, primarily by renaissance of both management and labor. The oil industry of the Soviet Union, left to depend entirely upon itself for equip ment and supplies, and even for new workers and technicians to replace those called into the services, did and is still doing a good and effective job. Since it could not hope for new equipment and parts and could not blame any other industry for the delays in delivery, it dragged out old machines from storage and repaired them in its own machine shops. Often such stored and used equipment was but slightly defective, waiting for some small part from factories in Central Russia, plants that now were either in German hands or entirely converted to the manufacture of munitions. More particularly, instead of the pipe that could not be taken to the Caucasus from Central Russia, casing reclaimed from abandoned or submarginal wells was used, or pipe from the abandoned or but slightly used pipe lines; and this practice is being continued even now on a large scale, to create an ample reserve for the duration of the conflict. Indirectly such a development was even an improvement on pre-war days, when many wells about to be completed had to wait for weeks, even months, for the arrival of new pipe, all blame then being placed outside of the industry on the factories in Central Russia. For the purpose of reclaiming equipment and pipe still usable, special crews were organized. The war also caused much quicker adaptation of certain American practices and introduction of many emergency measures, such as: removal of derricks upon completion of wells and the use of drilling equipment mounted on skids for rapid transfer from location to location—both of these practices, while standard in the U.S.A., being new in Russia; installation of simplified surface pumping units; substitution of wooden bearings in the surface pump equipment; completion of wells in the Ural-Volga district, where formations are hard and tight throughout the sedimentary column, without either casing or