Petrolic Elabuga

First information about structure of local paleozoic sediments appeared in 50th of XIX century. Geological surveys were mainly conducted by society of Kazan university naturalists. After hundred years deep searching drilling started, but at that times noone talked about big perspectives. It was difficult to work – there was lack of qualified specialists and transport means. It took 3 months to build every oil derrick, trenches and water conduit were digged by hand, up to 50 accidents fell to one borehole cavity during building. But geologists and drilling people looked persistently for petroleum in Kama region. For a long time they felt hard disappointment: at testing borehole cavities gave only water.

New stage in city’s development starts due to discovering of large deposits of petroleum in Eastern part of Kama region. Searching for petroleum was conducted during pre-war years. In 1954 borehole cavity ? 15 was laid at village Setyakovo (Bondiuzhsk deposit) that on September 16, 1958 gave a powerful oil gusher. Master Viktor Zemlyanukhin is considered to be its discoverer, later he died on borehole workstation. Elabuga residents immortalized the name of explorer in one of city’s streets.

In 1958 aggregative oil field was created in the city. Exactly since this time oil-and-gas producing authority “Prikamneft” conducts its history. At that time there was nothing but several boreholes drilled by prospectors. And tasks: present first petroleum till autumn. Petroleum was yielded. September 16 is considered day of oil extraction beginning, when “black gold” came out the first borehole. Almost 23 thousands tons were extracted during that year, annual mission was executed early, at the beginning of November.

Elabuga strated to change and grow. Village of oilmen was founded on Western outskirts of the city. Now those houses look like tired old men against the bachground of new buildings, and at that time they were symbols of new epoch! Later five-storey houses, new hospital complex, bus station, technich house, sports complex, oil-and-butter complex, shops, kindergartens and schools will appear, roads will be asphalted, city and district will get permanent power supply and passing gas.

During first years oilmen had to solve many tasks on-site, search for way out of atypical situations by themselves. For example, they came to the idea of transferring giant derricks to opposite bank of Kama river entirely on barges. Piecemeal parsing would have taken a lot of time, and terms were strict. Experiment was successful, derricks were transferred over the river not one time after that. On a photo that imprinted the moment, derricks “went” over Kama for the first time in the history of drilling business.

For more than three years petroleum was extracted only during navigation period – precious liquid was shipped into oil tankers. Sometimes when river ran high, it destroyed temporary moorage, and it was necessary to rebuild it. The matter is that there was no oil pipeline over Kama. Hundreds thousands tons of stock-tank oil were accumulated into tank parks, this delayed implementation of perspective deposits ready for development. In 1961 oil pipeline Bondiuga-Almetievsk was constructed, petroleum from Kama region came out as continuous flow. In the same year to accelerate development of Kama deposits oil development authority “Prikamneft” was created, more than 500 people worked on it.

Since 1967 preparation for creation of Lower Kama water storage basin has started. It had to flood half of Bondiuga deposit – the most powerful in Kama region. On future seabed special arch-shaped dam was constructed, its length was 12 km, it cut into new Kama bank with its endings. Boreholes had to be placed on it. Performing this work, Kama oilman used the most precious experience of their Azerbaijani and Perm colleagues of creating business on sea and river. 7-km dam arose, and on left Kama bank, on Pervomaisk deposit, islands-foundations were built. 11 millions cubic meters of ground were deposited there.

Now oilmen of Kama region work in many regions of republic. After creating of water storage basin of Lower Kama hydro power, part of oil field facilities turned out to be in flooded area. On some boreholes concrete foundations – artificial islands and many-kilometers dams “Petroleum stones” were constructed.