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In 2023, the Turkmenbashi complex of oil refineries celebrated its 80th anniversary. The history of the plants, or rather the first oil refinery on Turkmen land, began in the severe years of the Great Patriotic War. What factors influenced the decision of the Soviet government to build an oil refinery in Turkmenistan?

Firstly, these are the huge reserves of oil and gas, which have been repeatedly noted by many scientists and members of scientific expeditions exploring the bowels of the Turkmen land. For example, according to the data of Academician I. M. Gubkin, cited by him in a report at the XVII International Geological Congress in 1937 in Moscow, the geological oil reserves of the Turkmen SSR amounted to 253 million tons.

By August 1940, the industrial and estimated reserves of Nebitdag alone were estimated at 183.5 million tons. According to calculations, such reserves would have provided for oil production in the following volumes: 620 thousand tons in 1940, 945 thousand tons in 1941, 1,428 thousand tons in 1942, and 1,987 thousand tons in 1943. To implement these plans, it was necessary to drill 210 production wells with a total length of 288 thousand meters.

Oil specialists insisted on the need to introduce various modern types of surveys (geological, geophysical, and shale drilling) during the geological exploration work of Turkmenneft, to prepare a number of new areas where exploratory drilling could be accelerated. In addition, they considered it extremely important to carry out design work on the gas industry as early as 1940, providing for the construction of a gasoline plant. One of the most significant tasks was called the solution to the issue of the most efficient use of raw materials, the complete elimination of the incredibly large losses of oil both at the fields and during its transportation.

Meanwhile, the Nebitdag oil refinery that existed at that time had a design capacity of 200 thousand tons and could distill only 280-575 thousand tons per year. The reconstruction of the plant planned in 1940 with the increase of the capacity to 2000 tons of raw material processing per day did not resolve the existing disproportion between oil production and processing. Therefore, it was necessary to build a new oil refinery with the inclusion of all types of oil processing with a capacity of 1 million tons.

The key factor in determining the place and time of construction was the war, or rather the absence of military action in this area. Turkmenistan was geographically far from the front line of World War II. In October 1941, in connection with the approach of the front to the city of Rostov-on-Don and the danger of a breakthrough of Nazi troops to the North Caucasus, the question of evacuating the Tuapse oil refinery arose.

On October 25, 1941, the authorized representative of the State Defense Committee, Deputy People's Commissar of the Oil Industry of the USSR N.K. Baibakov arrived in Tuapse, where at a meeting he announced the decision of the State Defense Committee to evacuate the plant to the deep rear in the eastern region of the country.

On the night of October 26, 1941, the plant was stopped, and the next day, work began to dismantle the equipment. A huge amount of work had to be done by the thinned out team of the plant - more than 400 people (over 50% of the plant's staff) went to the front. Work continued day and night, with many operations performed manually, as almost all of the plant’s equipment and transport were mobilized for the needs of the front.

All plant workers, teenagers, and members of the plant's paramilitary fire brigade took part in the work of dismantling and loading the equipment onto trains. By the spring of 1942, all plant equipment had been dismantled. Dozens of kilometers of pipes and electrical cables were dug up, dismantled, and shipped, and 45 tanks with a capacity of over 80,000 tons were riveted and dismantled by hand. A total of 780 train cars with plant equipment were evacuated. And this does not include the steel tanks and hundreds of railway tanks that were transported across the sea afloat like rafts.

On July 25, 1942, 86 workers and engineering and technical personnel from the Tuapse Oil Refinery arrived in Krasnovodsk with their families. In August 1942, construction of the plant began off the shores of Soymonov Bay, northwest of the city of Krasnovodsk, in an intermountain valley between the Shagadam and Kubadag ridges.

A small city with a population of just over 30 thousand people took on the incredible scale of the crossing from west to east in the first years of the war of hundreds of thousands of refugees, wounded and millions of tons of cargo and equipment, including factories evacuated deep into the country. Trains with weapons and soldiers passed through the city from east to west. The enemy's rapid advance made the city accessible to enemy aircraft - in response, its mountains bristled with the barrels of anti-aircraft batteries. Seiners, launches and boats of the Turkmen fishermen who had only yesterday been peaceful were consolidated into militarized divisions...

The city lived by the laws of a frontline region of special strategic purpose. Its contribution to the defeat of the enemy at Stalingrad is difficult to overestimate. In 1942, it was the only point in the country through which the armies defending the Caucasus and Stalingrad were supplied day and night.

The design work was carried out by the Baku Institute "Giproazneft". Work on the construction of the plant was carried out around the clock. For the families of oil refiners and builders, 20 barracks were built (in the area of ​​the 30th section of Trust No. 8, later the 96th block on 1 May Street). Several hundred Komsomol members and young people aged 16-17 were sent to the construction of the plant in 1942-1943 at the call of the Central Committee of the Young Communist League of Turkmenistan.

The documents that determined the course of the oil industry's transition to a war footing were the State Defense Committee's Resolution No. 4ss of July 3, 1941, "On the program for producing artillery and small arms, the plan for evacuating the People's Commissariat of Armaments factories and creating new bases (in the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia)" and Resolution No. 333/ss of July 30, "On measures to develop oil production and refining in the Eastern regions of the USSR and Turkmenistan."

These and other documents outlined measures to relocate oil enterprises to the eastern regions, accommodate evacuated factories, and ensure growth in oil production and refining. In particular, it was proposed to extract pump and compressor pipes from stopped wells and transfer them to Krasnovodsk for use in the eastern trusts and Turkmenneft.

In the autumn of 1942, when a threatening situation developed for Baku, 764 wells were plugged and prepared for destruction at the Baku oil fields. 81 sets of drilling equipment together with personnel were transported to Turkmenistan.

On October 30, 1942, the State Defense Committee had to adopt another resolution on the transfer of oil equipment from Baku and Makhachkala to the oil regions of the Volga, Urals, Kazakhstan and Central Asia in a short time and under incredibly difficult conditions. What could not be transported was destroyed. Oil fields were set on fire, factories exploded, oil pipelines were destroyed.

Meanwhile, the active army and the rear required ever-increasing volumes of fuel and lubricants. But if in 1941 in the main oil region - Azerbaijan - 23.5 million tons of oil were produced, then in 1942 - only 15.7 million tons.

By the second half of 1942, oil production in Turkmenistan had increased, but there was a shortage of storage capacity. Construction and Assembly Department No. 4 was created to build oil storage facilities. Later, new oil storage facilities, an oil pipeline, four pumping stations, a power plant, and water pipelines were built in the republic. In the Turkmen SSR, the number of production wells increased more than twice as much as in the pre-war period. Among the factors that determined the growth of oil production in the republic was an increase in equipment production by the industry of the Urals and Azerbaijan. In addition, due to the threat of enemy invasion of Azerbaijan, Baku oil was also sent to the Krasnovodsk oil depots.

By the spring of 1943, as a result of the dedicated work of builders and operators, several priority facilities of the plants were built in Krasnovodsk: a diesel power plant, a marine coastal pumping station, a steam boiler house with 14 boilers, several dozen tanks, three pipelines from the plant to the Ufra oil depot, and the first cracking unit No. 21.

On May 25, 1943, the launch of the unit began. Due to a possible enemy air raid, work was carried out in blackout conditions, in complete darkness at night. Engineers and shop managers were on duty at the unit around the clock. Operator teams stood on watch for 12 hours. On June 5, 1943, at 8:00 p.m., unit No. 21 was put into cracking mode and the first tons of motor gasoline were obtained.

Thus began the history of the establishment and development of the plant and its team on Turkmen land. Thus began the transition from production to industrial processing of Turkmen oil.

At that time, July-August 1943, when the key clashes of World War II were taking place - the Battle of Kursk - Krasnovodsk oil refineries sent several dozen echelons of oil products to the front. Turkmen fuel was used to fuel armored vehicles and multiple rocket launchers, which ensured a decisive victory in the largest tank battle in the history of wars at the Kursk Bulge.

During the Great Patriotic War, the plant continued to operate and be built. In 1943, the plant's team gave the country more than 70 thousand tons of light petroleum products. In August 1943, thermal cracking unit No. 22 was launched, in February 1944 - atmospheric unit No. 11, in July - atmospheric unit No. 12.

In the second half of 1944, the former Tuapse oil refinery worked in Krasnovodsk in full force: two atmospheric units No. 11-12 of the Borman system, two thermal cracking units No. 21-22, a diesel power plant, a steam boiler house, a still unit for secondary distillation of gasoline, a unit for cleaning gasoline, ligroin and diesel fuel, tank farms, a communications shop with a telephone exchange for 100 numbers, several pipelines "plant - Ufra", a railway line from the Krasnovodsk station to the plant.

In the spring of 1944, construction began on a second plant purchased under Lend-Lease from the United States next to the existing plant No. 434. At that time, it was the largest oil refinery, consisting of a thermal power plant with a combined 4-furnace unit from the American company Badger, primary distillation units (now the AT-3 unit), thermal cracking, thermal reforming and catalytic polymerization of oil refining gases. The plant also included a bitumen unit, sulfuric acid purification and secondary distillation of gasoline, reagent facilities, a laboratory and tank farms.

At the end of 1945, the new plant No. 431 was put into operation. Due to an acute shortage of personnel, a school for factory and plant training was opened, where 120 teenagers aged 15-16 studied. Many of its graduates linked their fate with the oil refinery for the rest of their lives.

The construction of two oil refineries led to the rapid development of the city of Krasnovodsk. Despite the difficulties of wartime, in 1944-1945, 12 residential buildings of the plant, a clinic, a hospital with 50 beds, three dormitories, 2 kindergartens, a canteen at the plant, and a swimming pool were built. The streets of the city began to be covered with asphalt. A 36 km pipeline was laid from the Nefes tract to supply fresh water from artesian wells to the plant.

In the first post-war five-year plan (1946-1950), the construction of auxiliary shops of the plants continued. The growth of oil production in Turkmenistan, the needs of aviation development caused the need to build another oil refinery with a complex of units for the production of high-octane aviation gasoline.

In May 1948, both plants - No. 434 and 431 - were combined into one - Krasnovodsk Oil Refinery, and at the same time, the construction of the third plant No. 335 was started, which was completed in the spring of 1950. The units for electrical desalination of oil, atmospheric, catalytic cracking, gas fractionation and alkylation were built. On March 7, 1950, plant No. 335 merged with the existing oil production facilities. All three plants as part of one began to be called technological shops No. 1, 2, 3 of the Krasnovodsk Oil Refinery.

In the period 1946-1950, along with the plant, the city of Krasnovodsk was also being built at a rapid pace. In 1947, construction began on the city's largest building, the Palace of Culture of Oil Refiners.

Decades have passed since then. The plant has changed beyond recognition and experienced a rebirth during the years of Turkmenistan's independence, turning into a modern oil refining complex. Today, gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, liquefied gas, polypropylene, coke, lubricating oils and other oil products produced by Turkmen petrochemists fully meet the country's domestic needs and are in great demand on the foreign market.

At the TCOR, the largest oil refinery in Central Asia, a series of large-scale projects are currently being implemented to build new process units, which is aimed not only at increasing production volumes, but also at improving the environmental friendliness of technological processes and improving the quality of manufactured products.

The history of the creation of the first oil refinery in Turkmenistan is a true epic, a vivid example of how, in the most difficult conditions of wartime, it was possible to implement a large-scale engineering project. Born in the fire of the Great Patriotic War, it became a symbol of the fortitude and invincibility of the people's spirit. The plant has grown into a powerful enterprise, becoming one of the pillars of Turkmenistan's industry.

The connection of times is our strength. The legacy of our ancestors is not just history, it is a living thread that connects us with the past. The memory of their exploits inspires us to new achievements and helps us build a worthy future.

The article uses the scientific works of Elena Vladimirovna Bodrova, professor, head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, Doctor of Historical Sciences, materials from the brochure of N.S. Krikunov “40 Years in Service” and from the archive of the former director of the TCOR Davud Makhtumov.

Prepared with the support of the State Concern “Turkmennebit” and the Turkmenbashi Complex of Oil Refineries

ORIENT