Petroleum industry in Azerbaijan
The petroleum industry in Azerbaijan produces about 873,260 barrels (138,837 m3) of oil per day and 29 billion cubic meters of gas per year as of 2013.Azerbaijan is one of the birthplaces of the oil industry. Its history is linked to the fortunes of petroleum. It is poised to become an important oil and gas producer once again.
In 1871, Ivan Mirzoev, an ethnic Armenian who was then an otkupchina monopolist, built the first wooden oil derrick followed by another the next year. Drilling was conducted primitively with a balance arm, whim and manual pump.
There is evidence of petroleum being used in trade as early as the 3rd and 4th centuries. Information on the production of oil on the Apsheron peninsula can be found in the manuscripts of most Arabic and Persian authors.
The following paragraph from the accounts of the famous traveler Marco Polo "il Milione" is believed to be a reference to Baku oil: 'Near the Georgian border there is a spring from which gushes a stream of oil, in such abundance that a hundred ships may load there at once. This oil is not good to eat; but it is good for burning and as a salve for men and camels affected with itch or scab. Men come from a long distance to fetch this oil, and in all the neighborhood no other oil is burnt but this."
The Turkish scientist and traveller of the second part of the 17th century, Evliya Çelebi, reported that "the Baku fortress was surrounded by 500 wells, from which white and black acid refined oil was produced".
The first detailed description of the Baku oil industry was made by Engelbert Kaempfer, Secretary of the Swedish Embassy to Persia (Iran) in 1683.
In his notes he confirms the existence of places where natural gas discharges to the surface. Kaempfer describes "flaming steppe" as follows: it "...constitutes a peculiar and wonderful sight, for some of the fissures were blazing with big, others with quite flame and was allowing everybody to come up; thirds emitted smoke or at any case minimum perceptible evaporation that was sending off heavy and stinking taste of oil. It was occupying the territory of 88 steps in length and 26 in width."(improved translation needed)
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