Oil is the main natural resource of Azerbaijan. Ancient and medieval sources contain a great deal of information about its extraction and use. From the second half of the 19th century, the situation began to change radically in the leading countries of the world with the rapid development of the economy, including industry, the expansion of railway construction, the introduction of new technical discoveries. The oil industry was not left out of these processes.
At that time, the main centers of the oil industry in the world were Azerbaijan, which was part of the United States and the Russian Empire. The rapid development of the oil industry, which began in the last quarter of the 19th century, completely changed the face of Baku, making it one of the fastest growing cities in the world, attracting hundreds of businessmen and providing jobs for thousands of workers. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, Baku supplied 50% of the world's oil and 95% of the oil produced in the Russian Empire. Until the early twentieth century, Baku was the world's largest oil producer.
It is no coincidence that the British magazine Near East noted in 1918: "If oil is the queen, Baku is her throne."
The importance of oil increased especially in the early twentieth century - the beginning of mass production of cars and airplanes, the use of fuel oil by the navy. Oil has become not only a source of energy that drives thousands of engines, but also an important strategic resource for wars and competition.
The oldest information about Azerbaijani oil in written sources belongs to the ancient Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, one of the ancient authors. Speaking of the Atropatena of Media (now the territory of South Azerbaijan), he wrote: "... in this country" Mussel oil "is made. An arrow rubbed with this oil breaks off from a slightly stretched bow and ignites when it is pierced - the flame does not go out when it flies fast, the flame intensifies when you try to extinguish it with water, and the only way to extinguish it is to pour earth on it. Along with Marcellin, many other authors reported that the Greeks, Iranians, and Arabs used burning oil during the war to throw containers of burning sulfur and oil into the enemy.
Musa Kalankatuklu, a 7th century Albanian historian, is one of the local authors who spoke about oil in the territory of Northern Azerbaijan - the modern Republic of Azerbaijan. In his History of Albania, he mentions oil among the country's other natural resources. M.Kalankatuklu also provides information on oil and salt production. The relevance of this information to Absheron and Baku is confirmed by subsequent reports by both local and Arab authors.
Already in the early Middle Ages, Baku oil began to perform another function - a source of income.The Sassanids, who ruled in Azerbaijan in the III-VII centuries, and later the Arabs built fortifications on the northern borders to protect themselves from the attacks of nomadic tribes, as well as the Caspians. There is information in the sources that the funds required for the maintenance of the garrisons located in these fortifications were obtained from Baku oil.
The ninth-century Arab historian Ahmad al-Balazuri states: "Yazid [the governor of the Arab Caliphate in Azerbaijan, mid-eighth century] sent his men to the oil and salt miners in Shirvan to collect taxes, and then entrusted this task to special tax collectors."
Arab historians and geographers who visited Azerbaijan or spoke about the invasions of the Arab Caliphate gave very interesting information about Azerbaijani oil. According to them, the Arabs who captured Derbent were building warehouses for oil reserves here. Oil was brought here from Baku, stored in warehouses, and then used for military purposes.
Al-Masudi, a tenth-century Arab geographer who described Baku's "white and other oil fields" as "Bakuh," wrote that there was no other place in the world with kerosene other than Baku.
Describing Baku, al-Masudi writes that there are volcanoes near oil sources - "in the oil field", and even likens one to a volcano erupting on Mount Burcan (Etna -?) In Sicily. Al-Masudi writes about a volcano erupting on one of the islands in the Caspian Sea: “There is a large volcano erupting at different times of the year. The flames emanate from it, rising to the highest mountain heights and illuminating a large part of the sea. It can be seen from a distance of about 10 farsakhs (1 farsakh - about 5-6 km) and on land. The information provided by the Arab author confirms that the name of Azerbaijan "Land of Fire" is not unfounded.
The story of Abu Dulaf, a tenth-century Arab traveler who traveled around Azerbaijan and was known for his detailed information about the country's minerals, is of particular interest for the first time. dirham. There was another source besides it, the white oil flowed like lily oil, neither at night nor during the day.His rent was the same as this one. ” The famous encyclopedist Yagut al- Hamawi (13th century), who repeated the same information, uses the term "mercury oil" instead of "lily oil" to convey to his readers the information given to him by a merchant he believed in about the land burning here day and night. tries to explain.
Travelers visiting Azerbaijan provide information not only about the oil fields on the shores of the Caspian Sea, in Baku and other parts of Absheron, but also about the oil sources on the islands in the Baku archipelago of the Caspian Sea.
Abu Hamid al-Garnati, a well-known geographer and traveler of the 12th century from Andalusia, gave a very important account of the history of oil: “There is a black island like a mountain in this sea ... ... From this black soil comes fuel oil, black and white oil. The place is near Bakuh, Shirvan. From this land and island comes fire at night and like a flame of sulfur. When it rains on it, it burns more, and the flames rise to the sky. People see the fire from afar at night. It is impossible to see it during the day. "
The Persian-speaking cosmographer Hamdullah Qazvini, who lived in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, wrote in his Nuzhat al-Qulub (Entertainment of the Hearts) about oil: “There are many oil wells, and the largest supplier is in Baku. Here, they dig shallow wells in the ground and reach the oil reservoir, and the water pumped into these wells pushes the oil up. This information provided by Hamdullah Qazvini is very important. Thus, the information about the application of the method of pumping water to oil wells and reservoirs in a source of the XIV century once again confirms the ancient tradition of oil production in Azerbaijan.
The information about Baku oil given by Abdurrashid al-Bakuvi, a famous scientist of the 14th century, originally from Baku, is more detailed and especially important in several respects. According to him, “there are mountain fields and oil sources that produce more than 200 camels a day. Next to them is another source of oil, which is uninterrupted, day and night, like lily oil, and its rent is about 1,000 dirhams.Near the springs there is a yellow solid ground burning like a candle. They are torn to pieces and taken to the city to heat their houses and baths. There is a place in the city where the fire never goes out. There is an inhabited island [in the sea] near the city, where they hunt seals. They peel their skin, melt the oil and use it as oil in lamps. They make bags out of their skins, fill them with oil, and ship them to other countries. In some years, a large flame can be seen rising from the sea for a day or more. This fire burns for a long time and finally goes out.
Marco Polo of Italy (13th century) wrote that there was a rich source of oil on the border with Georgia. "With that oil, you can fill up to a hundred ships at once. They come from far away places for this oil, they just burn it everywhere.” The famous 16th century traveler Iosofat Barbaro wrote: “There is another city in this part of the sea called Baku, from which the Baku Sea is named. There are mountains near the sea. Black, very foul-smelling oil flows from those mountains, they use it in lamps at night, and they rub it on camels twice a year, because otherwise they get sick.”
All this information, based on ancient and medieval sources, shows that at that time oil was transported from Baku in camel caravans or horse-drawn carriages, as well as by sea in boats.
According to al-Masudi's information on the existence of maritime connections between the Caspian countries, other authors (eg, al-Bakuvi) reported that Baku oil was shipped from Baku to Iran and other countries, along with various products such as oil, salt and s. they carried. An anonymous Iranian author of the late tenth century states that all the oil used in Deylam was brought from Baku.
Subsequent data on Baku oil transportation allow us to observe the expansion of the geography of transportation. For example, it is known that as early as 1637, much of the oil was transported to the Russian state, and it was stored in copper tanks in the "Treasury Chamber" (probably in the warehouses of the Moscow Kremlin). The English traveler and writer Charles Marvin wrote in 1877 that there was indisputable evidence that oil was exported from Baku to Iran, Iraq, India and other countries 2,500 years ago.
According to experts, based on sources, since ancient times in Absheron, oil was usually extracted from wells that expand from top to bottom.
The first place in terms of the quality of oil produced was occupied by Surakhani wells, where kerosene was extracted. In second place were the fields of Balakhani and Bibi-Heybat, which produce dark green oil. In other parts of the Absheron Peninsula, black oil was extracted. Oil wells were in the hands of local judges.
At the same time, there were wells belonging to civilians and religious institutions; those wells passed to them on the basis of the king's orders.
In addition to collecting taxes from the population and maintaining the dyehouses, the judges also ordered oil wells. Although the debtor had extensive rights, the treasury had a special official who supervised the wells. This supervisor oversaw the production and sale of oil.
The production equipment used in the oil business was at a very primitive level. As a result, even the richest wells produced only 1.6 tons of oil per day. Oil production was very low due to low demand and consumption. From 1818 to 1852, that is, for 32 years, there was almost no progress in oil production.
However, a very significant event in the history of the Baku oil industry took place at that time: in 1848, the world's first mechanical oil well was drilled in Bibi- Heybat.