The Petroleum and Gas History of Romania
Autor: Gheorghe Ivanus | Niculae Napoleon Antonescu | Ion Stefan Stefanescu | Mihai Pascu Coloja | Stefan-Traian Mocuta s.a
Editura: A.G.I.R.
Format: 17,5x24,5 cm
Nr. pagini: 928 color
Coperta: legata
ISBN: 978-973-720-678-7
Anul aparitiei: 2017
PREFACE to third edition
The opportunity of elaborating this book „The Petroleum and Gas History of Romania” appeared after the exhaustion of the previous two editions of the books/works “The Petroleum and Gas Industry in Romania”, first edition, in Romanian, in the 2008 year and the second edition, in English, in the year 2009, at the same AGIR Publishing House. Moreover, in the year 2017, Romanian Petroleum Industry has celebrated 160 years since its official reconnaissance/legitimation, respective in the year 1857.
This book is the third edition, revised and added, of the previous two editions, including same completions as: new dates, aspects and pictures from all periods of time; developing and bringing up to date the chapter regarding the period after
1989; introducing self-presentation of same very important companies from this domain/field as OMV PETROM, ROMGAZ, TRANSGAZ, CONPET, LUKOIL, OIL TERMINAL a.o.; improving the quality of the figures/pictures a.o.
The work embraces all the aspects/domains of the oil and gas industry as: geological and geophysical prospection`s, oil and gas geology, well drilling, oil and gas reservoirs engineering and exploitation/production, petroleum processing/ refinery, petrochemistry, storage, transportation and distribution of oil, gas and petroleum products, petroleum equipment, education, design, research, development, legislation, international cooperation and other related aspects, in the field of oil and gas industry, in Romania, over a correlated period of time: before 1837, 1837-1914, World War I (1914-1918), 1918-1939, World War II (1939-1945),
1945-1989 and after 1989 up to date.
For each of the above mentioned periods the historic background and the evolution of the main oil and gas related activity branches are depicted with their continuous mutual influence.
The basic concern of the authors was to outline the contributions of Romania`s engineering/professional corps to the evolution of the oil and gas industry, locally and internationally. The moment and the activity fields are highlighted, in which Romania has had a leading role, opening the way for new technics, technological procedures, equipment and uses for oil and gas products.
Past and more recent history proved that the international recognition of certain discoveries and industry developments must be not taken for granted, especially in the case of small and average countries, so the enforcement subsequent priority claims is quite difficult, both due to external obstructions and even to local “torpedoed”.
For this reason, and not only, one of the main purpose of this book is to remained Romanians, but not only them, the moments, aspects and fields in which autochthonous performances represented world premieres or scored the international scientific or technical level of the time. Also, for a better information and cognition of the persons/specialists who had an important contribution in any domain of the Romanian Petroleum and Gas Industry, in this book are presented quite many personalities/professional with remarkable achievements, from all studied periods. Because there are many more others, who have not been presented in this book, we recommend to everybody who wish more information`s regarding this aspect, to look in the other works quoted in the Bibliography and especially in the book [380] “The Elites of Romanian Petro-Gas Industry”. For this reason, this book is of interest not only for specialists, but also for a larger audience, including historians, economists, political analysts, academic staffs, professors, students, engineers and others from oil and gas industry and other related fields but not only.
In order to cover such a long period of time and a lot of complex aspects, regarding all the branches of oil and gas industry on our lands, a team of a very high qualified specialists, respective the authors of this book, were set up. The team include specialists/experts from all the main involved branches of oil and gas industry, with remarkable activities an achievements in his domain (see the short presentation of the authors).
Unfortunately, before we started to elaborate this third edition of the book, two members of the team who elaborated the first two edition, respectively Stefan Traian Mocuta and Stefan Stirimin, had passed away, so their initial contributions, revised and added, where introduced in this new edition.
The present book represents a better version of the previous two editions, especially from the qualitative point of view, so the authors are sure that this work will be very well received not only by the specialists but from many other people too.
We thank very much to the National Petroleum Museum on Ploiesti for giving us the access to its excellent data base, in this fields. Also, we thank to the authors of the reference [379] „Romanian Oil, 160 years of history by pictures” for their support/cooperation.
We express a great gratitude to our sponsors: The ROMANIAN PETROLEUM-GAS FOUNDATION Ploiesti, ROMGAZ Medias, CONPET Ploiesti, MONTICOR INDUSTRIES Ploiesti, BLACK SEA TECHNOCHIM Bucuresti, CONFIND Campina, INSPET Ploiesti, PETROTEL LUKOIL TELEAJEN and TRANSGAZ Medias for their support to elaborate and publish this book.
Prof. Dr. Eng. Niculae Napoleon ANTONESCU
Honorary Rector of Ploiesti Petroleum-Gas University
CONTENTS
1. THE CHALLENGES OF PETROLEUM 1
1.1. Petroleum industry during 150 years in Romania 1
1.2. Petroleum, actors and destinies 23
2. SINCE IMMEMORIAL TIME 53
2.1. Oil during Antiquity 53
2.2. Oil during Romanian Antiquity 58
2.3. Oil during the Romanian Middle Ages 60
2.3.1. Domestic documents 60
2.3.2. Foreign travelers and the Romanian petroleum 63
2.4. Ancient exploitation methods 65
2.4.1. Oil pits 65
2.4.2. Mines 65
2.4.3. Washeries 66
2.4.4. Shafts 70
3. 1857 - THREE WORLD OIL PREMIERES ACHIEVED IN ROMANIA 77
4. FORMATION AND SELF-ASSERTION OF PETROLEUM INDUSTRY, 1857-1916 87
4.1. Overview 87
4.2. Geological and geophysical research 99
4.2.1. The evolution of petroleum geology reflected in the specialized literature 99
4.2.2. Petroleum in Romania, from its beginnings until World War I 100
4.2.3. Applied Geophysics in Romania 109
4.3. Oil and gas reservoirs exploatation 110
4.3.1. Main development stages 110
4.3.2. Drilling systems used in Romania between 1861 - 1916 124
4.3.3. Oil production 133
4.3.4. Natural gas production 139
4.4. Petroleum processing 144
4.4.1. Historical background 144
4.4.2. Evolution of oil processing in Romania 147
4.4.3. Technology of oil processing in Romania. Technical endowment f the refineries 163
4.5. Storage and transportation of crude oil and petroleum products 189
4.5.1. Storage 190
4.5.2. Transportation 197
4.5.3. The oil pipelines 202
4.5.4. Water transportation 206
4.6. Petroleum equipment 208
4.6.1. General aspects 208
4.6.2. The beginnings of the petroleum equipment building industry in Romania 208
4.7. Education in the petroleum and gas field 217
4.7.1. Significant data regarding the Romanian education system, before 1857 217
4.7.2. The Romanian education system between 1857 and 1918 221
5. WORLD WAR I AND ROMANIAN PETROLEUM 229
5.1. World War I and the petroleum issue 229
5.2. Romania - self-destruction in the petroleum industry 231
5.3. The issue of the compensations 239
6. THE MATURITY OF PETROLEUM AND GAS INDUSTRY (1918 - 1939) 243
6.1. Restoring and development of the oil industry 243
6.2. Evolution of the Romanian oil industry between 1918-1939. General view 246
6.3. Extension and enhancement of geological and geophysical research 257
6.3.1. General aspects regarding the activity of geological and geophysical research during the period between the two World Wars 257
6.3.2. Petroleum geology in Romania between the two World Wars 258
6.3.3. Applied geophysics between the two World Wars 262
6.3.4. Personalities of petroleum geology between the two World Wars 266
6.4. Oil and gas reservoirs exploitation 278
6.4.1. The main development stages 278
6.4.2. Well drilling 286
6.4.3. Oil production 290
6.4.4. Reservoir engineering 297
6.4.5. Natural gas production 298
6.5. Petroleum processing - world standards in the Romanian refineries 302
6.5.1. Romanian refineries after World War I 302
6.5.2. The development of the refineries 305
6.5.3. Pipe-still distillation plants 317
6.5.4. Thermal cracking 321
6.5.5. Fabrication of gasoline, liquefied gas and coke 333
6.5.6. Fabrication of lubricants, paraffin and bitumen 338
6.5.7. Gasoline and processing of gasoline 341
6.5.8. Presentation of a few relevant refineries 346
6.6. Storage and transportation of oil and petroleum products 364
6.6.1. Rail way transport 364
6.6.2. National pipelines 367
6.6.3. Private pipelines 369
6.6.4. Depots. Storage facilities 370
6.7. Petroleum equipment 371
6.8. Education in the petroleum and gas field 378
7. ROMANIAN OIL DURING WORLD WAR II 385
7.1. Romania, brief retrospective on the internal and international policy, between 1938 and June 22, 1941 385
7.2. The role and significance of Romania oil in World War II 389
8. ROMANIAN OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY AFTER WORLD WAR II (1945 - 1989) 405
8.1. Reconstruction of oil potential 405
8.1.1. The period May 9, 1945 - June 11, 1948; partial reconstruction of the petroleum industry 405
8.1.2. Aspects of the crude oil potential reconstruction. Overview of the state owned petroleum industry, 1948-1989 409
8.2. Romanian oil after August 23, 1944. Establishment of SOVROM-Petrol 419
8.3. Reorganization and revival of geological and geophysical research 424
8.3.1. Organization structure of the exploration-production activities 424
8.3.2. Geological research in upstream of the petroleum industry 426
8.3.3. Geophysics applied to upstream petroleum industry 439
8.3.4. Geological research drilling in petroleum industry 442
8.3.5. Romanian experts in petroleum geology field 446
8.4. Oil and gas reservoirs exploitation 452
8.4.1. Well drilling 457
8.4.2. Oil production 460
8.4.3. Reservoir engineering 464
8.4.4. International cooperation 468
8.4.5. Production of natural gases 471
8.5. New developments - the large refineries in Romania 476
8.5.1. The reconstruction of the refineries destroyed by the War 478
8.5.2. The development of the production capacities 485
8.5.3. Modernization of refineries 491
8.5.4. The development of the large refineries 511
8.5.5. The progress of the small refineries 520
8.5.6. Results of the development and modernization of refineries 526
8.5.7. The products and their quality 532
8.5.8. Capacity and structure of the refineries 533
8.5.9. Economy of crude oil processing 537
8.6. Birth of modern petro-chemistry in Romania 538
8.6.1. Methane chemical processing 538
8.6.2. Petrochemical acetylene 541
8.6.3. Well gases 542
8.6.4. Beginning of petro-chemistry, 1920-1939 545
8.6.5. Pyrolysis of hydrocarbons 550
8.6.6. Olefins from methanol in fluidized bed, with the continuous regeneration of the catalyst 551
8.7. Developments of processes and international co-operation 553
8.7.1. Developments of processes 553
8.7.2. International co-operation 556
8.8. Petroleum equipment 572
8.8.1. General aspects 572
8.8.2. Building the petroleum equipment industry 574
8.8.3. Development and coming to maturity of the Romanian petroleum equipment industry 586
8.8.4. The design-research activity in the field of petroleum equipment 599
8.9. Education in the petroleum and gas field 617
8.9.1. The education in the petroleum and gas field during the period 1945-1948 617
8.9.2. The Romanian education reform, in the year 1948 618
8.9.3. The pre-university education in the petroleum and gas field, during the period 1948-1990 619
8.9.4. The petroleum and gas higher education, during 1948 - 1990 626
9. ROMANIAN OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY AFTER 1989 643
9.1. The revolution of December 1989 and its implications for the country’s political, economic and social life 643
9.2. Romanian oil industry after 1989 legislation for privatization 648
9.3. Geological and geophysical research 661
9.4. Oil and gas reservoirs exploitation 664
9.4.1. Well drilling 664
9.4.2. Oil production 666
9.4.3. Reservoir engineering 669
9.4.4. International cooperation 673
9.4.5. Natural gas production 673
9.5. Petroleum processing and petrochemistry 687
9.5.1. SNP-Petrom 688
9.5.2. Rompetrol Group 691
9.5.3. Lukoil 693
9.5.4. Rafo Onesti 697
9.5.5. Other refineries 698
9.5.6. Oil and energy security 700
9.5.7. Implications of oil processing in the development of petrochemistry and chemistry 713
9.5.8. Integrated oil refineries and petrochemical platforms 721
9.5.9. Natural and synthetic fibers 726
9.5.10. Organic syntheses, medicines, dyes and detergents 727
9.5.11. Inorganic chemistry 728
9.5.12. Chemical fertilizers 728
9.5.13. Elastomers, plastics, tires and derived technical articles 730
9.5.14. Silicates, oxide compounds, construction materials 730
9.5.15. Chemicals from coal 731
9.5.16. Catalysis and catalytic processes 732
9.5.17. Biotechnologies - Biorefineries 733
9.5.18. Research & development, education, personnel training 734
9.5.19. Conclusions 739
9.6. Oil and gas transportation and systems 749
9.6.1. S.C. Conpet S.A. 749
9.6.2. S.C. Oil Terminal S.A. 754
9.6.3. S.N.T.G. Transgaz S.A. Medias 758
9.6.4. Distribution of petroleum products and natural gas 762
9.7. Petroleum equipment 763
9.7.1. General aspects 763
9.7.2. The industry of oil field equipment 763
9.7.3. The industry of refinery and petrochemical equipment 775
9.7.4. Research and design activities in the field of petroleum equipment 784
9.8. Education in the petroleum and gas field 800
9.8.1. General aspects 800
9.8.2. The national education system 803
9.8.3. Petroleum and gas preuniversitary education 805
9.8.4. The oil gas higher education 812
10. QUO VADIS? 839
10.1. Resources and ways of valorization 839
10.2. The battle for petroleum and gas 846
10.3. Epilogue - hope dies last 854
TIMELINE 857
ROMANIAN PERSONALITIES IN THE OIL WORD 861
BIBLIOGRAPHY 869