MartinMansson

By the end of the 19th century, the European oil companies had been resisting the American Standard Oil's attempts to gain a foothold in Europe and Russia for more than 30 years. But they had also been fighting among themselves, which made them vulnerable. Now they tried to merge.

In 1909, Branobel celebrates its 30th anniversary, the same year as its head, Emanuel Nobel, turns 50. Emanuel is given the title of His Excellency by the Russian state, which few private individuals were granted. There was every reason to celebrate – but in Baku the oil is beginning to run out...

The battle for the oil markets continued despite the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The stakes for power over the Russian oil market were high and extremely uncertain, particularly as a result of the threat from the Bolsheviks of coming nationalism. There will be many turns in the game before Branobel's plants in the still independent Baku are finally sold to the American Standard Oil in 1920.

On a journey to Baku in 1874, Robert Nobel buys a small refinery and a parcel of land from the master of the river boat he is travelling with. Just a year later, he finds oil on the island of Cheleken in the Caspian Sea. This is the start of the oil industry that was to dominate the Russian oil market a long time into the future.

At the beginning of the 1870s, the European oil market was dominated by John D Rockefeller's company, Standard Oil. But the Americans would soon have tough competition from the Nobel brothers' newly-started oil company, Branobel. The new-found oil in Robert Nobel's oil plant in Baku flowed and, with the help of the Russian government in the form of increased export duties, Branobel grew at a rapid rate despite the, initially, backward technical level.

After the Russian Revolution and his return to Sweden, the young Swedish engineer Anton Carlsund writes down his memories of his work at Ludvig Nobel's engineering works in St Petersburg. Through his reports, we find out, among other things, that it was orders from the Russian army that laid the foundation for Nobel's successes and travelling on the "Nobel wheel" was all the rage in St Petersburg.