In 1925, the united Kingdom of Najd and Hejaz was created on the territory of the Arabian Peninsula, headed by Abdel Aziz ibn Saud. In September 1932, the kingdom was renamed Saudi Arabia. The young state was not only very poor, but also experienced an acute shortage of drinking water. And it was the desire to find water that played a very important role in the further development of the country.

Abdulaziz ibn Saud

King Ibn Saud had a friend and adviser - the Englishman Harry St. John Bridger Philby or simply Jack Philby. He grew up in Ceylon, graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, and began his civil service career in India. During the First World War he served on the British political mission in Baghdad and Basra. Philby first met Ibn Saud in 1917 during his mission to Riyadh. In 1925, dissatisfaction with British policy in the Middle East prompted Jack Philby to leave government service. He returned to Saudi Arabia, founded a trading company in Jeddah and renewed his friendship with ibn Saud, after some time becoming an unofficial adviser to the king.

It was Philby who took up the challenge of solving the water problem. He interested one of his friends, the American Charles Crane, in this question. Crane was the wealthy owner of a company that dealt in all things plumbing. In addition, he was a man with a keen interest in history and international relations. But his main passion was Arabic studies. And it was Arabic studies that brought Crane and Philby together, who met, corresponded, and exchanged ancient manuscripts. When Jack Philby told Crane about his philanthropic plans to benefit the Arabs with water, he immediately responded. Crane had an expedition in neighboring Yemen at that very moment to search for water, led by a very experienced prospector and drilling specialist, Carl Twitchell.

On February 25, 1931, Crane arrived in Saudi Arabia, in Jeddah. The king greeted him with a luxurious banquet and great honors. For his entertainment, hundreds of the king's bodyguards performed a mesmerizing sword dance. The king gave Crane many carpets, daggers, sabers and two thoroughbred Arabian horses. The two of them talked about the scorched rocky desert and the possible presence of underground rivers under Nejd. After this, Twitchell's expedition was transferred to Arabia.

After making an arduous 1,500-mile journey to check for signs of artesian water in the Arabian Desert, Twitchell showed up in Jeddah in April 1931 with bad news: drilling for water was futile. But at the same time, he stated that the experience of a driller tells him that there must be oil in the eastern regions of Arabia.

2 Oil exploration concession

The prospects looming on the horizon pushed Philby and Ibn Saud to action. It was necessary to find foreign investors. The choice fell on the Americans. The king asked driller Carl Twitchell to be his intermediary in America. In February 1933, Twitchell returned to Saudi Arabia and brought with him a man named Lloyd Hamilton. Hamilton was a lawyer representing the interests of the oil company Standard Oil of California (SOCAL). Philby signed a secret agreement with SOCAL under which he became a “consultant” for the company. Under the terms of the agreement, he received $1,000 a month for six months, obliging himself to ensure that the Americans received a concession to search for oil within this period, as well as a bonus if oil was found.

SOCAL was not the only company interested in searching for oil in Arabia. The Iraqi Oil Company also sent a representative for negotiations. The Saudi side demanded that the future concessionaire pay 100 thousand pounds in gold upon signing the agreement. The Iraqi Oil Company offered a maximum of 10 thousand pounds. Art. SOCAL was also not ready to pay that much. But in the end, an agreement was signed with the Americans.

According to the terms of the agreement, SOCAL had to immediately pay 35 thousand pounds sterling in gold. Eighteen months later a second loan of £20,000 was to be issued. In addition, the company pledged to provide another loan of 100 thousand pounds sterling in gold upon discovery of oil. The concession was valid for 60 years and covered an area of ​​360 thousand square miles. On May 29, 1933, the agreement was signed.

3 Oil discovery

The first two geologists landed at Jubail in September 1933 and met Twitchell, who had arrived from Jeddah. A local merchant, Hamad al-Ghusaybi, became an agent for the company. Geologists lived in Hofuf in his house until 1936. At first, geologists transported cargo into the desert on camels. Only a few months later the trucks appeared. The company brought all the equipment and most of the food from the United States through the port of Al-Khobar. By the end of 1933, there were already eight oil workers in Saudi Arabia.

By 1935, geologists had found a favorable structure to begin drilling. On April 30, 1935, drilling of the first well, Dammam-1 (D-1), began. It was destined to become historical only thanks to its first issue. After 7 months, Dammam 1 produced gas and signs of oil at a depth of seven hundred meters. But due to equipment failure, the drillers were forced to cement the well. Dammam 2 was started immediately. Signs of oil were found at a depth of 663 meters. The company decided to expand the search and began drilling four more wells. Prefabricated houses, equipment, gear - everything necessary to continue work - were sent to Al-Hasa from the United States.

By the end of 1936, 62 Americans and more than 1,000 Saudis were working in the Dammam Dome area. But there was no reason to rejoice yet. Deepening D-1 to 975 meters yielded nothing. D-2 turned out to be “crude” and produced ten times more water than oil. With difficulty, 100 barrels of heavy oil with 15 percent water were pumped out of D-3. D-4 turned out to be dry, D-5 was just as hopeless. "Wild Cat" - a well drilled at random in early 1937 in the El Alat area 20 miles northwest of Dhahran to a depth of 1380 meters, produced a small amount of oil mixed with water.

The experimental well D-7, founded in December 1937, was difficult: chains broke and drills were lost. But at the beginning of March 1938, D-7, drilled to a depth of 1440 meters, produced oil. On the first day there are only about 1,500 barrels, and after two weeks it is more than twice as much. Continuation of D-2 and D-4 to the discovered oil depth also gave good results and marked the discovery of a new oil-bearing layer for the region in the formation, which geologists dubbed the Arabian zone.

King Abdulaziz ibn Saud blessed the historic discovery and in April 1939 he himself came to Al-Hasa from Riyadh along the ancient caravan route through the red sands of the Dakhna desert, accompanied by a huge retinue of 2,000 people. The procession numbered up to four hundred cars. In a place that had just received the official name of Dhahran, a tent city of 350 white tents was set up. Before the king’s arrival, the first oil pipeline on Saudi territory was built to Cape Tannura, where the first shipment of oil was waiting for the tanker D. J. Scofield." On May 1, 1939, King Ibn Saud turned the valve with solemnity appropriate to the occasion, releasing oil from Saudi Arabia.

The first oil field was discovered in Saudi Arabia

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Kingdom of Saudi Arabia formed

The regions of Najd and Hijaz were united on September 23, 1932 into one state called Saudi Arabia. The first king of this state was Abdul Aziz. Soon, colossal oil fields were discovered in Saudi Arabia. A well-established oil industry was established in the country only after the end of World War II. Oil became the source of wealth and prosperity for the state.

In 1925, the united Kingdom of Najd and Hejaz was created on the territory of the Arabian Peninsula, headed by Abdel Aziz ibn Saud. In September 1932, the kingdom was renamed Saudi Arabia. The young state was not only very poor, but also experienced an acute shortage of drinking water. And it was the desire to find water that played a very important role in the further development of the country. When drilling one of the wells on March 15, 1938, the first oil field in Saudi Arabia was discovered.

On the first day, the well produced only about 1,500 barrels, and two weeks later more than twice as much. Continuation of the work of wells D-2 and D-4 to the discovered oil depth also gave good results and marked the discovery of a new oil-bearing layer for the region in the formation, which geologists dubbed the Arabian zone.

King Abdulaziz ibn Saud blessed the historic discovery and in April 1939 he himself came to Al-Hasa, where oil was discovered, from Riyadh along the ancient caravan route through the red sands of the Dahna desert, accompanied by a huge retinue of 2,000 people. The procession numbered up to four hundred cars.

In a place that had just received the official name of Dhahran, a tent city of 350 white tents was set up. Before the king’s arrival, the first oil pipeline on Saudi territory was built to Cape Tannura, where the first shipment of oil was waiting for the tanker D. J. Scofield, and on May 1, 1939, King Ibn Saud, with appropriate solemnity for the occasion, turned the valve, releasing oil from Saudi Arabia.

Today, Saudi Arabia's proven oil reserves stand at 268 billion barrels, considered the world's largest until January 2011, when Venezuela announced its proven oil reserves stood at 297 billion barrels. About one fifth of the world's oil reserves are located in Saudi Arabia. Most of them are located in a relatively small number of large deposits.

Although there are about 100 gas and oil fields in Saudi Arabia, more than half of Saudi oil is produced from just 8 fields, the largest of which is Ghawar. Ghawar is the largest oil field in the world, it contains about 70 billion barrels of oil, 90% of Saudi Arabia's oil is produced from 5 fields, with 60% produced in Ghawar.

Saudi Arabia produced 10.3 million barrels per day in 1980 and 10.6 in 2006. According to some experts, Saudi Arabia's oil production has already peaked or will reach it in the near future.

Since Saudi Arabia has not provided foreign researchers with access to documents related to the country's oil reserves since 1982, official information about them raises doubts among experts.

... read more >

Saudi Arabia, one of the world's largest oil exporters, has taken up the development of alternative energy. It intends, together with the Japanese telecommunications corporation Softbank, to build the world's largest solar farm with a capacity of 200 GW. The corresponding memorandum of intent was signed in New York by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son.

By May of this year, the parties must prepare a feasibility study of the project, and by 2019 the first solar installations of the project with a capacity of 3 and 4.2 GW will be launched. According to the project, the entire cascade of solar farms will be fully operational in 2030. Its estimated capacity will be 200 GW.

The document also notes that the parties will develop the production of solar panels and storage capacity in Saudi Arabia, writes Finanz.ru. The project provides for the creation of 100 thousand jobs. It is expected that its implementation will increase the kingdom's GDP by $40 billion per year.

Supplies are running low

It was not by chance that the Saudis took up solar energy: they have at least three good reasons for this, says Rustam Tankaev, leading expert of the Union of Oil and Gas Industrialists. The first and main thing is the desire to diversify the economy.

“The fact is that the oil fields of Saudi Arabia are quite depleted, and there is no chance of opening new ones there. And it is absolutely clear that in the foreseeable future, oil production in Saudi Arabia will begin to fall,” the expert explained to Reedus.

In recent years, the Saudis have used very serious methods to increase oil production, but the capabilities of these methods are limited, and now they are approaching a threshold where a decline in production will become inevitable.

There are no illusions in Riyadh either: the country has a state program for the transition to high-tech production and, apparently, it is indeed being consistently implemented.

But creating such production is quite difficult. The scientific research necessary for this requires the presence of scientific schools, long-term work and training of a large number of specialists, as well as a specific atmosphere that would provide stable conditions for creativity.

“Unfortunately, there is none of this in Saudi Arabia. There are certain results of work over the last decade, but they are very small,” the analyst notes. And in this situation, such projects are very important and fit well into the new development paradigm.

Striving for purity

The second incentive is environmental. Saudi Arabia can, of course, produce some electricity from oil, but it is dirty production. According to Tankaev, the cleanest energy is gas. But there are virtually no gas reserves in Saudi Arabia; blue fuel has to be purchased in other countries. In particular, a preliminary agreement was concluded on the supply of LNG by Novatek from Russia.

In these conditions, the presence of such a powerful source of absolutely clean energy as solar farms is quite a great benefit. Much less gas will have to be imported and money spent on it.

The third incentive comes from nature. Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries that can use solar and wind energy relatively safely, as it has a very high number of sunny days and constant winds.

In Europe, for example in the UK, it is impossible to rely on solar energy, because a significant number of days a year are cloudy and solar panels simply cannot work. And there are very high risks that at the moment when energy is needed most, it simply will not be available in the required quantities.

The expert believes that, from a security point of view, European countries, in principle, cannot afford a share of solar and wind energy in the energy balance above 10%, although it is already higher. There are no such risks for Saudi Arabia.

Decline of the Oil Age

In general, the behavior of Saudi Arabia clearly shows that the oil era is coming to an end. This country traditionally has great respect for analytical research and the work of experts. They produce and publish quite a lot of this kind of research, and they are very well prepared.

“If, for example, in the United States, the vast majority of what is published contains political opportunistic elements, in Saudi Arabia this is almost completely absent. That is, their numbers are not distorted, conclusions are drawn quite calmly and without regard to the international political situation,” says Tankaev.

The Saudis understand perfectly well: it is not without reason that a huge amount of money is being invested in the creation of clean energy, which will ultimately lead to the elimination of the oil energy industry. As an example, the expert cites the well-known, one might even say, textbook statement of one of the country’s oil ministers that the Stone Age did not end because the stones ran out, and the oil age will not end because the oil ran out.

"Everything is just like that. And most likely, the oil age will end even earlier than oil in Saudi Arabia,” the analyst agrees.

Let all the flowers bloom

Russia also understands perfectly well that black gold has a relatively short time to rule, and is comprehensively developing all types of energy. Basically, of course, the bet is on gas. The country ranks first in the world in terms of the share of gas in energy consumption; blue fuel currently accounts for more than 51% of the Russian energy balance.

“Russian energy is the cleanest in the world,” Tankaev assures. “The United States at one time was at about the same level with us, but now they have slightly reduced the share of gas in their energy consumption, they have a little more than 30%.”

There are also quite a lot of active projects in all areas of renewable energy, and often they are not state-owned, but private. For example, garbage disposal is a very sensitive topic right now. And there are projects to use it to produce energy. It turns out that it is cheaper to process waste into fuel and produce heat and energy from it than to bury or store it in smelly landfills.

Russia, with its gas deposits, does not particularly need such projects yet, but people are active, many expect to make money from this, and ultimately they do. In some places, similar initiatives have been implemented with the help of foreign companies. In particular, at one time Kamchatka received a large grant, where the Americans built tidal stations.

There are other examples. So, slowly, but still, the production of ethanol, that is, ethyl alcohol, is being restored. In the USSR, this industry was quite powerful, but with the collapse of the state it was almost completely destroyed due to the fact that it was impossible to draw a line between drinking alcohol and fuel in the country. As a result, ethanol was subject to huge excise taxes and was absolutely unprofitable as a fuel.

At the same time, ethyl alcohol is very widely used throughout the world as a component of gasoline; it is also very beneficial for the environment. In Europe, any gasoline contains at least 15% alcohol. In the USA, motor ethyl alcohol is produced more than gasoline in Russia - about 40 million tons per year. In Russia - about 300 thousand tons per year. But this is already progress compared to the period when they stopped producing it altogether.

Archaeologists have proven that implantation attempts were made back in the 6th century BC. The first artificial teeth were made from wood, animal bones, and ordinary or precious stones. Later, human teeth were also used, purchased from the poor or removed from corpses. Modern false teeth with pins and enamel crowns were invented by Louis XV's dentist Pierre Fauchard in the 18th century. Today, according to statistics, every second person after 35 years of age goes to the dentist with the need for prosthetics. In Russia, the dental services market is valued at more than $4 billion. About 10% of this amount comes from implantation.

The doll was first demonstrated at the New York Toy Fair. Ruth Handler once noticed that her ten-year-old daughter liked paper “adult dolls” more than child dolls. And Mrs. Handler decided to create an “adult doll” for little girls. In the late 50s, Ruth acquired the rights to the Lily doll. She was a curvy blonde with a wasp waist and revealing outfits. The doll's design and wardrobe were changed so that the doll became a toy for children. She was named after Ruth Barbara's daughter, Barbie. Today Mattel is the second largest toy manufacturer in the world. The company, which makes Barbie and other toys, had a market capitalization of more than $14.4 billion in 2014. In first place is Lego, the capitalization of this company is $18 billion.

On this date, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Bell, first called his assistant, who was in the next room. In fact, Bell was building a special apparatus for the deaf and dumb, but while in the process of work, he came up with the idea of ​​​​making a device with which it would be possible to transmit sounds at a distance. Over time, telephone design and communication quality improved. In 1983, a fundamentally new type of communication appeared when Motorola released the first cell phone. And 22 years later, thanks to the Internet, IP telephony became publicly available. Last year, the revenue of all Russian operators from fixed telephony services amounted to almost 171.5 billion rubles. While the revenue in Russia of only one mobile operator from the “troika” for the same period was almost 282 billion rubles.

March 10, 1939 - the beginning of regular television broadcasts from the Shabolovsky television center in Moscow

It started with the screening of a documentary film about the opening of the 18th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The signal went through the transmitters of the Shukhov Tower. Subsequently, the programs were broadcast four times a week for two hours. On the basis of the television center, the USSR Central Television Studio was created in 1951. In 1967, the main television transmission center was moved to Ostankino. However, the Shabolovsky Center is still used by some TV channels today. At the time regular broadcasting began, the number of televisions in Moscow homes then barely exceeded a hundred. Today, about 30 million new televisions are sold annually in Russia, and more than 225 million televisions per year in the world.

Previously, monetary systems were based on other metals. In the 14th century, Central Europe had a silver standard, which gradually moved to the bimetallic system. Only five centuries later, with the advent of paper money, gold completely replaced other metals. Paper money and small change coins were issued for the convenience of payments, but upon request they were exchanged for gold. Gold was chosen because it had a high value and was impervious to changes over time. The birth date of the gold standard is considered to be 1819, when a law was passed in Great Britain on the exchange of banknotes for gold. And in 1971, when the United States abandoned the free exchange of dollars for gold, the era of the gold standard finally ended

According to legend, it was found by a nomad who decided to dig a well. However, instead of life-giving water, a black oily fountain appeared from underground. Due to World War II, the development of the deposits was forced to be postponed. But already in the second half of the 20th century, thanks to oil, Saudi Arabia turned from the poorest state into one of the richest countries in the world. Today, almost 92% of the country's total income comes from oil exports. Saudi Arabia has 265.9 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. This is 15.8% of all world reserves. About 90 billion barrels of black gold lie in the Russian depths.

While some are rubbing their hands and waiting for Saudi Arabia to withdraw from the oil agreement with the Russian Federation (the Saudis accused Russia of insufficiently reducing the previously agreed rates of daily production), the news that both countries are planning a joint production of oil and gas equipment went almost unnoticed. Well, it’s a logical step for powers whose economies are heavily dependent on oil production.

Today, as we celebrate the beginning of the oil era in Saudi Arabia, it is worth talking about the fact that there are no resource curses, there are weak states.

Find and don't give up

The current Saudi state is already the third in a row, and its emergence is associated with the rivalry between the Saudis and the Rashidis, the most influential families in the region. The story is almost classic: the Sauds wanted to create a state that could resist the Ottoman Empire, and their rivals, on the contrary, often resorted to the help of the Ottomans in the fight against the Sauds.

Third time lucky for another Saudi. He began the struggle for the restoration of the state at the beginning of the 20th century, and ended after the end of the First World War. Empires collapsed, new alliances emerged. It was easier for a new state to get used to this whirlwind. The most important thing is that the Ottoman Empire was gone, and the superpowers of that time, Britain and the United States, were vying to patronize the new Middle Eastern state. The British helped Abdul Aziz ibn Abdurrahman Al Saud come to power and defeat his enemies. The Americans, as they say now, made a venture investment in Saudi Arabia. One of the most successful in history.

Since Britain helped fight off the Sauds, it is logical that it received the right to geological research and concession. However, in 1923, none of the London bankers wanted to invest in the desert. And this had its own objective reasons: Britain at that time did not even recognize the state in which its businessmen received the right to search for and develop deposits. The fact is that the war was still going on and ended only at the beginning of 1926. Soon after this, the Saudi state was recognized by the USSR.

In 1933, Standard Oil managed to get the concession. Considering the circumstances of a particular year, there is no need to explain once again how difficult it was for the company to decide to invest. And how difficult it was for geologists for almost three years (April 1935 - the start of drilling the first well) to convince their management not to curtail the project.

Oil had already been found in the Middle East by that time - in Bahrain. And he played a cruel joke on the geologists. Hoping that the depth of occurrence should be approximately the same (600-650 meters), geologists over and over again received zilch instead of oil: dry wells, water, water with oil impurities - and this is already at a depth twice as great as in Bahrain. Oil was still found. After the seventh well passed the mark of 1440 meters. Fantastic luck: the party leader was not there, he was recalled to the USA to close the project. A little over a year later, the first tanker picked up the first oil at the port, delivered there through a hastily built oil pipeline.

The war helped

If oil had been found there earlier, World War II could have followed a different scenario. It, as we remember, largely revolved around oil. In particular, Rommel's forces in North Africa were to take control of fields that were controlled by British companies. If he succeeded, the next target would be the Middle East. But it didn’t work out: Saudi Arabia was not yet a significant player at that time.

On the other hand, in many ways the war made the country the way we see it. War means constant outstripping demand for fuel and petrochemicals. Under other conditions, production in Saudi Arabia, even with its incredibly low cost, could develop over a long period of time and gradually. The war, and with it the surge in motorization, gave production a gigantic boost: from 0.5 million tons in 1938. up to 7.8 million tons in 1946. And up to 26 million after just 4 years. At its peak, in 1973, 375 million tons were pumped in the desert.

Today, only the Saudis themselves know how much they could produce - they limit the production of their member states to maintain prices. But in general, if we talk about a country that lives on the oil needle, an energy superpower, then it is Saudi Arabia: 40% of GDP is formed by oil, 90-95% of export revenues to the budget come from it.

Oil investments

It is known that the Saudis have long been and, with reservations, still are a strategic partner of the United States in the region. This began with the Standard Oil concession, then the war, then the demand for Middle Eastern oil grew at such a pace that the United States could not allow the SA to leave its zone of influence and kept it under its wing.

The question arises: how then did she escape the notorious “resource curse”? Why don’t the Saudi subjects split into different kinds of civil fronts (as in, say) and bludgeon each other? Because the Saudis can and should be reproached for violating human rights, but the Saudis began to build their own state even before the British colonies in the New World declared independence, so the state interest is well understood there.

We started with the gradual buyout of a company that extracted oil in Arabia. After the buyout and renaming, it is known as Aramco. Then they looked for growth points: since production costs are low, it makes sense to invest in industries where oil is the main raw material (cheap raw materials => competitive prices for final products). We are talking about investments in oil refining and petrochemicals. It is always more profitable to transport with your own tankers - which means you need your own merchant fleet.

And these are only targeted government investments. Perhaps no one knows how many of them are scattered around the world. There is only a term - “camel’s money”, that is, the money of oil sheikhs.

Hardly anyone thinks that the refining and petrochemical markets were waiting for them. But they resigned themselves.

Saudi Arabia and the oil that has been pumping there for almost 80 years is a good example of raw materials modernization; investments in own industry; building high value chains.

After all, the term “energy superpower” only has offensive connotations if it is understood to mean the sale of crude oil alone.

***

As for the resource curse, we are generally inclined to consider it a journalistic cliche. Much more often, bad managers are to blame.