Balakhani-Baku oil pipeline (Shukhov)
Oleoducto de Balajani a Bakú (Shújov)
- Date
- 1878 · confidence high
- Place
- Balakhani, Baku, Azerbaijan
- Credited to
- Vladimir Shukhov for Branobel
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
A steel pipeline about ten kilometres long with steam pumps carrying oil from the Balakhani fields to the Baku refineries. It was the first oil pipeline in the Russian Empire and the start of Shukhov's petroleum engineering.
It is not the world's first oil pipeline: Pithole (Pennsylvania, 1865) is earlier. Exact length and date vary by source (1878-1879).
What it led to
- replacement of barrel carts by continuous transport
- the Baku-Batumi pipeline (1906) and the Caucasus network
- Shukhov's method for calculating pipelines