This year is the 70th anniversary of the Oil Rocks – the first offshore oil field and the legendary city-platform.
As soon as you step on the island of miracles, you become sure that throughout these 70 years, it has gone through a road equal to a century. The black rocks located in the Caspian Sea, 110 km north-east to Baku, has turned into a huge industrial residential complex.
Approximately 2, 000 wells have been drilled here so far; 200-km pipe rack, 333 industrial sites have been built; 100-km oil, gas and water pipelines have been laid.
The Oil Rocks is called the eighth miracle of the world, as there is no such city-platform anywhere else in the world. It is impossible not to be amazed taking into account that this huge city-platform was established in 1949.
In summer of the same year, exploratory and drilling works were carried out here at the initiative of Aghagurban Aliyev, Sabit Orujov and Yusif Safarov.
The Oil Rocks has been placed on the Guinness Book of Records as the first sea platform established on the high sea. 7 ships were taken down here to create conditions for oilmen and drilling works. At that time, it was the reason why the Oil Rocks became known as the “island of 7 ships”.
Today, the production level of the oil extracted in the Oil Rocks increases. Currently, 10 wells with the production volume of 10 tons are projected to be drilled on industrial site N 331.
Overall, throughout 70 years, 176 million tons of oil and over 13 billion cubic metres of natural gas have been extracted from the Oil Rocks. All this work is the result of a human brain and great labor.
Today, about 4, 000 people work in the Oil Rocks. Some of them live here. Others work on shifts. To improve the living conditions of residents, oilmen and other employees, big infrastructure has been constructed here.
As they say, the Oil Rocks experiences its “second spring”. The Oil Rocks is also the hub connecting the strategic communication and infrastructure of all other oil fields of Azerbaijan. 70 percent of SOCAR’s annual oil and gas production is covered by the Oil Rocks. Thus, the victory and miracle of the Oil Rocks will last for many years.
Aysham Rustamova
