 (1927), the construction work of the Baku-Batumi oil pipe-line was completed (1925) and for the first time in the world the drilling of the oil well in the open sea was carried out.
In the years of the Great Patriotic War the Azerbaijani oil played a decisive role in the victory over the fascist Germany. Taking into consideration the growing requirements in oil, the oil workers of Baku reached the record level of oil extraction in 1941 – 23.482 million tons. Never before was in Baku extracted so much oil, this record has not been surpassed up to now. Thousands of oil workers went to the front to fight and their places in the fields were taken by the women. By the summer of 1942 25 thousand women had been working in the oil industry which comprised 33% of all the workers. By 1944 their number reached 60%.
The German army was approaching Baku. Hitler even fixed the day of the city’s capture – September 25, 1942. Under these conditions the city was preparing for the evacuation. By the autumn of 1942 764 wells were stopped and prepared for destruction and 81 sets of drilling equipment together with the personnel were sent to Turkmenia. At the same time, Baku provided the front with oil, restoring and exploiting the old wells. Taking into account the fact that the Germans blocked the traditional ways of transportation, it was decided to transport oil through Middle Asia. For the first time in the world practice the railway cisterns with oil were tugged afloat in the sea from Baku to Krasnovodsk. In accordance with the decision of the State Defence Committee about 11 thousand oil specialists and a great number of equipment were evacuated from Baku to Tataristan, Bashgiria and other regions of Russia in October 1942. Most of them were transported to the vicinities of the city of Kuybishev (Tataristan) where with the help of the Baku oil workers and equipment the oil extraction was developed. As a result these places were nicknamed “a second Baku”. From the end of 1943 when the danger around Baku was over, the restoration of the oil industry started. But as a result of the weakened industrial potential of Azerbaijan the level of oil extraction fell, reaching 11.5 million tons in 1945. Only from 1947 the oil extraction began to grow again.
At the end of the 1940s the construction of the “Oil Rocks” (“Neft Dashlari”) started. On November 14, 1948 the first troop of oil workers headed by Nikolay Baybakov landed in the open sea on a group of rocks 42 km to the south-east of the Apsheron Peninsular called “Gara Dashlar” (“Black Rocks”). The staff of the troop included Sabit Orujov and geologist Agagurban Aliyev, the author of the idea that there is oil in the sea. All of them later became living legends. After finishing the construction of a small house on piles and an electric power station, M.Kaverochkin’s brigade started drilling the first well on June 24, 1949. On November 7, 1949 this well at a depth of 1100 m gushed out oil with a daily output of 100 tons. In honour of this event it was decided to rename “Black Rocks” as “Oil Rocks”. And on February 18, 1951 the first tanker with oil was ceremoniously sent to the shore. It was decided to create an artificial island of 7 thousand hectares around the Oil Rocks. Half a million cubic metres of rocky blocks and sand were brought from the islands of Zhiloy and Urunos. Breakwaters, moorings and shelters for vessels were built around. And in 1952 for the first time in the world practice there started the construction of a pier which connected the artificial islands. There were times when the length of the pier connecting the numerous areas reached 300 km. The grand construction started on the Oil Rocks in 1958. In the open sea at 110 km distance from Baku electric power stations, five- and even nine-storey buildings of hostels, hospitals, Palaces of Culture, bakery factories, lemonade workshop were constructed (its product was even “exported” to the shore), a park with trees was laid too. Since 1949 there have been drilled 1940 wells here, more than 160 million tons of oil and 12 bill