Bibi-Heybat mechanically drilled oil well
Primer pozo de petróleo perforado mecánicamente (Bibi-Heybat)
- Date
- 1846-1848 · confidence medium
- Place
- Bibi-Heybat, Baku, Azerbaijan
- Credited to
- Nikolay Alekseev (mechanical drilling, 1846), following the proposal by Vasily Semyonov and Nikolay Voskoboynikov; engineers of the Russian Empire
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A well of about 21 m, percussion-drilled, that struck oil more than a decade before Drake's well in Pennsylvania. By the late 19th century Baku had become the world's leading oil producer.
The date and its priority over Drake (1859) and over the Galician wells are disputed; Russian documentation from 1846-1848 supports it.
What it led to
- the Baku oil industry (Nobel, Rothschild)
- Caspian pipelines and oil tankers
- mass production of kerosene