On Friday I tagged along on a field trip to Sangachai Oil Terminal, the largest outside of the Middle East. The Azeris like to say that the first oil rig was installed in the world here in Baku in 1849, before it was drilled for in Pennsylvania in 1853. During WW II, Azerbaijan supplied Russia with 80% of their oil...thus, contributing the the Allies Victory...they also like to report. Hitler had made plans to capture Azerbaijan and the oil but was foiled...lucky for them.
If you want to know the big US and Western players in the oil industry...and think of this as you fill up...BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Hess and Exxon Mobil....but also Japan, Norway, Turkey, Iran, France and Russia are deep in the mix too.
The pipeline that feeds and fuels most of Europe is the BTC Pipeline..Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan...1098 miles...than on tankers in the Bospouros Strait in Istanbul, then on to markets in the EU.
Two pictures that I thought says it all...the first from the early turn of century...men stood chest high shoveling oil...and the other a platform...think oil city floating in the water...hundreds in the Caspian Sea....one of the reasons pollution is so bad...water, air, and death rate of workers....but ....
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