The archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences contain two documents: “Daily Journal of Development and Deepening of an Oil Well on the Ukhta River by M. K. Sidorov in the Summer of 1868” and “Journal of the Success of Exploratory Drilling of M. K. Sidorov’s Well in 1872.” These documentary sources precisely define the duration of all phases of drilling on the Ukhta. Preliminary work to organize the drilling was begun in July 1868, and a well 16.5 feet deep was opened in August. Then the crew began manual well drilling using the rotary method with an eight-inch pyramidal bit. The rock cuttings were removed from the hole by a bailer, which was lifted by a hand crank. When a layer of hard rock was reached, the bit had to be changed every two hours. Beginning at a depth of 32 feet, traces of petroleum were noted on the drill pipe when the drilling tool was raised. Once the bit had reached a depth of 40 feet, a small stream of oil flowed from the hole to the surface, amounting to about 4.9 gallons per day. However, further drilling in beds of even harder rock caused the bit to break. There was no other tool in the field, and work was suspended for an extended period. In 1868, Mikhail Sidorov published an article titled “Petroleum in the Pechora Territory” in the Tekhnichesky sbornik [“Technical Collection”], in which he provided a detailed explanation of the progress of drilling on the Ukhta and the basic causes of the temporary suspension. At the same time, the first analyses of Ukhta oil, performed at the chemical laboratory of St. Petersburg Technological Institute by production engineer Eduard Wroblewski, confirmed the real possibility of its successful subsequent refinement.
After the departure of the experienced foreman Lopatin, Sidorov placed serf Aleksey Lebedev, who had been a member of the crew as a simple laborer until then, in charge of further work at the Ukhta field. With his stubbornness and natural talent, Lebedev managed to master the secrets of drilling despite a lack of specialized education. The archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences have preserved his designs of the bit, drill pipe, and temper screw, and today we can give due credit to the original drilling tool design developed by a simple Russian serf in 1871. Drilling operations resumed in June 1872 after the tools had been fabricated at a plant in St. Petersburg and delivered to the field. At first, drilling was done by manual rotary means, then by percussion on continuous pipes screwed to the bit. The drillers began using the cable method by the time the well reached a depth of 64 feet. In early September of that same year, Mikhail Sidorov brought to the field the noted German geologist Hans von Höfer, later a professor at the Mining Academy and author of the popular textbook Das Erdöl (Petroleum) und seine Verwandten [Petroleum and Its Relatives]. The prestigious scientist thoroughly familiarized himself with the results of the work at the field, and hypothesized the presence of a rich oil pool. He also praised work supervisor Aleksey Lebedev, noting that he had duly managed affairs at the Ukhta field at the level of an experienced mining engineer.
By late September 1872, the well had been drilled to a depth of 173.5 feet, after which a weak inflow of petroleum appeared on the surface. This was the long-awaited oil of the Russian North, obtained from a well despite the pessimistic forecasts of many skeptics. In all, the Ukhta well yielded over about 240 barrels of oil. Sidorov exhibited samples of Ukhta oil at the All-Russian Manufacturing Fair in St. Petersburg in 1870, at the Polytechnic Fair in Moscow in 1872, and at three World’s Fairs: in Vienna in 1873, Philadelphia in 1876, and Paris in 1878.
At that time, however, industrial quantities of oil could not be produced from Sidorov’s wells for a variety of reasons. Due to the absence of data on the geologic structure of the Ukhta petroliferous area, wells were drilled only at fairly depleted sites of surface oil shows. At the same time, the manual method of drilling in hard rock did not permit workers to reach the main oil pay zones, which lay more than 325 feet underground.
Of course, Mikhail Sidorov fully understood the need for further oil field development, geologic exploration, and use of power drilling, but the small quantities of oil produced could not pay for the considerable capital he had invested in the Ukhta oil field. He saw a spark of hope from the sale of 720 barrels of Ukhta oil shale (domanik) in France, but for a number of reasons, this sale led nowhere. In addition, Sidorov’s first success in the oil business spurred a new wave of furious opposition on the part of the governor, Prince Gagarin, and local bureaucrats. As Sidorov wrote bitterly, “At this point, I should have halted work, because the new difficulties and new constraints imposed by the administration have placed me in such a position that I could not manage the parcel allocated to me as I saw fit, and where there is no right or freedom of action and everything depends on the administration’s whim, all industry is unthinkable.”
Understanding that he was inevitably doomed to failure on his own, Sidorov began working actively to pool the efforts of all entrepreneurs involved in the development of the natural minerals of the North. Leading a group of entrepreneurs, he appealed to the Russian government: “Based on our experience, our petroleum enterprises, on which we have labored since 1864, are proving nearly impossible to realize under the existing rules, which do not provide us any firm guarantees of compensation for our efforts and expenses. Even so, the development of the oil industry in the North and the construction of refineries will certainly bring tremendous benefit both to domestic industry in general and to the Pechora Territory in particular, because they will help reduce the price and expand the usage of oil, this necessary product in the northern Russian provinces, and settlement of the deserted margins of the North.” Unfortunately, the government departments did not heed the voice of the Russian entrepreneurs, and their appeal remained on the shelf.
Sidorov’s financial situation did not permit him to resume his oil business on the Ukhta until 1881. Prior to this, Sidorov had visited the Baku oil fields, familiarizing himself in detail with the organization of oil production, refining, and storage. At his request, the noted chemist Gustav Schmidt tested various schemes for distilling Ukhta crude at the Konstantinovka Refinery laboratory in Yaroslavl Province. In 1882, Sidorov invited a group of qualified mining specialists from Baku to continue the work, defined a plan for development of the Ukhta oil field, and drew up a list of necessary equipment. He placed a large order in Moscow with Gustav List’s machine factory, which worked for nearly two years—from 1883 to 1885—to fabricate two steam boilers, a drilling rig, a steam engine with forward and reverse gears, a steam pump, drill bits, pipes, reamers, bailers, temper screws, a “free-fall” Fabian system, and other tools for percussion drilling, as well as metal tanks for the oil. This equipment was initially delivered from Moscow by water to Cherdyn, so that it could be shipped from there via the Kolva and Pechora Rives to the site of the field on the Ukhta. Due to certain difficulties that arose during transportation of these oversize cargoes, much of the equipment was never delivered to the field and was simply left at a wide variety of locations along the way.