Volgotanker

Volgotanker (Russian: ОАО «Волжское нефтеналивное пароходство „Волгота́нкер“», '"Volgotanker" Volga Oil Tanker Shipping ') was a Russian company engaged in the business of transporting oil and oil products by tanker ship along the inland waterways and coastal seas of European Russia. It was headquartered in Samara.

The company was declared bankrupt in March 2008.

The history of Volgotanker goes back to the Oil Fleet Agency, part of the Volga State Shipping Company, which was established in 1923. In 1938, the agency was spun off into a separate state-owned company, called Volgatanker. Its mandate was to ship crude oil and oil products, primarily coming from the Baku oil fields, from the Caspian port of Astrakhan to Russia's industrial centers along the Volga and Kama. The service turned out to be highly important during the Second World War, when most of the railway lines connecting the Caucasus with Central Russia were cut by enemy action in 1942. Fifty-nine of the company's barges were sunk or damaged during the war, primarily by Luftwaffe's bombs and mines, with the loss of 123 sailors.

Soon after the war, the company also started transporting oil from Russia's so-called "Second Baku" - the oil fields in Bashkiria and eastern Tatarstan. As oil refineries were built along the Volga and its tributaries (e.g. at Ufa, Kstovo, and Syzran), their products, too, were taken to the markets throughout Russia by Volgotanker. The Volga-Baltic Waterway and Volga-Don Canal made it possible to deliver oil and oil products to Soviet ports on the Baltic, Azov and Black Seas as well. As of 1965, the company transported 3 million metric tons of oil and oil products per year. That year, Volgotanker boats also started transporting oil directly to Finnish ports.

...
Wikipedia