In an interview with a leading Soviet newspaper, Kapelyushnikov commented on the early stages of his trip: “We agreed to drill consecutively, first with the rotary drill and then with our turbodrill. The experiments showed that under identical conditions, i.e., a depth of about 700 meters [2,300 feet], with 16.5 liters [4.4 gallons] of drilling mud being pumped per second, the turbodrill drilled 60% faster than the rotary method—which amazed everybody. Energy consumption by the turbodrill was about a third of the amount used in rotary drilling. As we wrote to Moscow, this success resulted from the powerful pumps and rolling cutter bits. We also discovered several more flaws in the design of the turbodrill. We determined that the drilling mud needs to be cleaned of sand, which sometimes comprises up to 50% of the mud. The presence of sand led to severe wear on the blades in the single-stage turbine. At the same time, the idea arose to build a multistage turbine like the one successfully designed by engineer Lyubimov.”
The Soviet drilling crew conducted more demonstrations with the turbodrill in the US over the next two years and on the whole withstood a tough test by experienced and demanding US drilling specialists.
Emphasizing the crew’s success, Kapelyushnikov described the results of the turbodrill testing: “The appearance of our turbodrill in summer 1929 made a big impression on American drilling equipment manufacturing engineers as well as drill operators. Petroleum engineering groups in America are currently very interested in the problem of deep drilling at 10,000 feet since it is extremely difficult to drill at such depths using the rotary method. Following the testing of the turbodrill, US petroleum publications have recently been printing more and more statements saying that the delivery of drilling power to the bottomhole is the only solution to the problem of deep drilling.”
The two years Kapelyushnikov’s crew spent working at US oil fields likewise made an enormous impression on the international business and engineering community. Several foreign companies—and not just US firms—began contacting Soviet trade representatives, and Kapelyushnikov directly as well, with proposals to purchase or license the new invention. The Soviet government, however, decided instead to make further improvements to the turbodrill on its own and retained the exclusive rights for its use. Little justification for this decision could be found, though, since the Soviet Union did not produce rolling cutting bits or powerful pumps at the time and did not employ methods to clean drilling mud satisfactorily. Under such conditions, the introduction of turbodrilling, which would be pursued vigorously over the next nine years by Party leadership as well as Sergey Kirov personally, failed to produce the desired result. Turbodrilling accounted for only 1.1% of drilling throughout the country in 1927, and by 1932 this share had only increased to 3.9%.
The turbodrill was used for the first time in the New District at the Grozny oil fields in 1928. Grozneft noted in its industrial and financial plan that “18,478.6 meters [60,625 feet] were drilled in the New Grozny District in the 1927–28 operating year using the rotary method, of which turbodrilling accounted for 483.7 meters [1,587 feet].”
The turbodrilling system introduced by Kapelyushnikov provided a clear direction for how to resolve complex engineering challenges that would be faced in building a commercial version of the turbodrill, which occurred in 1934 when a creative group of Soviet engineers led by Pëtr Shumilov developed a multistage gearless turbodrill. By 1940, this group had built a new multistage turbine equipped with a reinforced single-stage gearbox that provided the required drilling speed directly on the shaft and could be adapted to drill every kind of rock seen in the field. This not only changed the negative attitude that drilling experts had displayed towards downhole motors but also led to the adoption of turbodrilling in almost 80% of USSR drilling operations.
The 1929 Ukhta Expedition
The USSR’s transition to a policy of accelerated industrialization in the late 1920s forced Party leadership to devote more attention to the exploration and development of hydrocarbon resources in new areas, including the Timan-Pechora region.
By that time, the Komi (Zyryan) Autonomous Region had been in existence on this territory for eight years, and questions had begun to arise about the region’s economic foundation, including its industrialization, and about the development of the Komi territory’s natural wealth, both its forests and its subsurface resources, but above all Ukhta petroleum. Fundamental changes needed to be made to the economy of the primarily agricultural region, which was not in a position to resolve such issues on its own, owing to a lack of roads and a proper work force. Party leadership thus came up with the idea of using prison labor to carry out economic operations under the supervision of special agencies. They were called correctional labor camps, and their mission was to develop natural resources in the remote areas of the European part of the North.
On June 27, 1929, the Politburo passed a secret resolution, “On the Use of Prison Labor,” which was officially put into effect by a resolution of the USSR CPC on July 11. The Joint State Political Directorate [OGPU], a state security organization, was put in charge of its implementation. After receiving approval from the Politburo, the OGPU began implementing the project. On June 28, the OGPU set up the Northern Special Purpose Camp [SEVLON], which was given instructions to develop natural resources near Ukhta and Pechora, explore for crude in Ukhta-Izhma District, cut down forests in the Arkhangelsk Region, and build a railroad from Pinyug to Ust-Sysolsk (179 miles) and a highway from Ust-Sysolsk to Ukhta (205 miles).
Prior to this, OGPU officials met in Moscow in spring 1929 to determine what measures needed to be taken to implement the important mission of exploring for oil fields in the region. As part of preparations for the meeting, the OGPU consulted with two respected geologists: Professor Aleksandr Chernov, a well-known researcher of the Pechora territory, and former Deputy Director of the Geologic Committee Nikolay Tikhonovich, who was also a prisoner at Butyrka Prison. He later recalled: “I was invited to a meeting by eight people I did not know. They asked me point-blank how to get to Ukhta, what kinds of things to take, what kinds of equipment, how many provisions, etc. I wrote down the route for them and what kind of supplies to take. I wrote that everything needs to be brought there, right down to the last nail. I showed them two routes: the old route and the sea route by which heavy cargo could be transported.... We organized an expedition of 195 people.”
What emerged from the Moscow meeting was a route for the expedition, a plan for transporting complex drilling equipment and instruments to the taiga and roadless region, and a group of qualified workers that had been selected for the mission from among the prisoners. In May 1929, the OGPU central office sent two senior officials, Sergey Sidorov and Eduard Skaya, to the Solovetsky prison camp to resolve some practical issues. Meanwhile, necessary equipment was being prepared for shipment to the Pechora territory. All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) [AUCP(b)] members Dmitry Rusanov, a fifth-year student in the geologic department of the Mining Academy, and Ivan Kosolapkin, a drilling expert from the Grozny fields, were invited to take part in this work. By July 1929, the expedition staff had been assembled at the Solovetsky camps and provided with the necessary equipment.
The National Archives in the Komi Republic provide details about the trip and the first months of the OGPU expedition. These documents include copies of dispatches to the director of the department for the northern camps from OGPU expedition head Sergey Sidorov (in August–September 1929), a report on the travels of the Ukhta Expedition, and a report on the condition of the Chibyu fields. Among other things, the reports say, “The expedition began loading onto the USEVLON ship Gleb Boky on the pier of the city of Kem at 7 a.m. on July 5, 1929 and finished at 11 p.m. the same day. The ship could not accommodate all the cargo, which resulted in more than two rail cars worth of flour as well as some food and household goods being left behind in Kem. A group of 139 prisoners was then loaded onto the ship, which left the Kem pier at 2 a.m. on July 6.”