Oil Chemistry

Chemical plants look great and smell nice in the summer. Let's take a look at this one under the scorching summer sun.

 

The history of the plant is remarkable. It was opened by Dmitry Mendeleev as the first oil refinery in Russia.

The plant produced a wide range of oils, lubricants, gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, and more. In recent years, all areas of production except fuels have shut down and are available for urban exploration.

Mineral oils were produced in this shop.

Half-demolished storage tanks and a laboratory that was on the way between the shops.

The pool is lined with chemically resistant tiles in case liquids spill out of the tanks.

A decayed lab. Unfortunately, there isn't much labware left.

Gaseous product storage facilities.

Moving on. Part of the production cycle has been moved out of the shop.

We will check them later and go straight into the shop. The control rooms are not really interesting here.

The first floor houses pumps.

The second floor is more interesting.

High-temperature reactors.

Two types of filters for separating sediments formed during oil production: drum vacuum and press.

Time to go outside.

Next to the workshop is a bunch of tanks for the finished oils.

Fenced open production area.

From the top, there's a great view of the pipelines and tanks for petroleum products.

View from the bushes.

And this is how the whole production group looks from above.

We walked right up to the working part of the plant.

Some tanks are not used or even demolished, the rest look modern.

I guess that's all there is to see. Off we go.

By the way, until recently, the plant dumped waste into the lakes near it, which caused a local environmental disaster. Some time ago the plant decided to take care of ecology, but it didn't succeed. They only filled some of the lakes with sand, without preliminary treatment of the water or the bottom. It is impossible to walk on the former lake because there is a risk of sinking through the sand.

But there is an industrial wonder: a bitumen heart lake. Nyan!

Until we meet again!