Neft Daşları ( az, Neft Daşları, russian: Нефтяные Камни, Neftyanye Kamni, also known as the Oil Rocks) is an industrial settlement in

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

. The settlement forms part of the municipality of Çilov-Neft Daşları in the Pirallahy raion. It lies away from the Azerbaijani capital

, and from the nearest shore in the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

. A full town on the sea, it was the first

oil platform An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platfor ...

, and the first operating offshore oil platform in the world, incorporating numerous

drilling platform A drilling rig is an integrated system that drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill wat ...

s. It is featured in ''

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' as the world's first offshore oil platform. The settlement began with a single path out over the water and grew into a system of paths and platforms built on the back of ships sunk to serve as the Neft Daşları's foundation. The most distinctive feature of Neft Daşları is that it is actually a functional city with a population of about 2,000 and over of streets built on piles of dirt and

landfill A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

Etymology

The settlement was originally named as ''Chernie Kamni'' ("Black Stones"), but was later renamed to ''Neft Daşları'' ("Oily Rocks"), replacing the allusion to the black colour of oil with a reference to the substance itself.

History

Construction of the settlement

The Soviet Union 1971 CPA 4086 stamp (Oil Platforms on Causeway in Caspian Sea)

The first large-scale geological study of the area was conducted in 1945–1948. The settlement of Neft Daşları was built after oil was discovered there on 7 November 1949, at beneath the

and it became the world's first offshore

. By 1951, the Neft Daşları was ready for production, equipped with all of the infrastructure needed at the time. Drilling platforms were erected, oil tanks installed, and docks with enclosures for ships were built. The first oil from the Neft Daşları was loaded into a tanker in the same year. In 1952, the systematic construction of

trestle bridge A trestle bridge is a bridge composed of a number of short spans supported by closely spaced frames. A trestle (sometimes tressel) is a rigid frame used as a support, historically a tripod used to support a stool or a pair of isosceles trian ...

s connecting the artificial islands was begun. A number of Soviet factories constructed crane assemblies especially for use on the Neft Daşları, along with a crane barge that could carry up to 100 tons of oil. The assemblies were equipped with diesel hammers used to drive piles into the sea floor. Large-scale construction started on the settlement in 1958, which included nine-story hostels, hotels, cultural palaces, bakery factories and lemonade workshops. The mass development of Neft Daşları continued during 1976–1978 with the building of a five-story dormitory and two oil-gas compressor stations, the installation of a drinking water facility, and the construction of two underwater pipelines to the Dubendi terminal, each with a diameter of . In addition, a flyover for vehicular traffic was created. As a result, the area of the settlement grew to around in the 1960s, with the length of the steel trestle bridges joining the man-made islands exceeding .

Post-independence

In November 2009, the settlement celebrated its 60th anniversary. Over the last 60 years, the oilfields of Neft Daşları have produced more than 170 million tons of oil and 15 billion cubic metres of associated natural gas. According to present-day estimates by geologists, the volume of recoverable reserves is as high as 30 million tons. The oil platforms have gradually fallen into disrepair, and no refurbishment plans are currently underway.

Demography

The population varies from time to time in the settlement. As of 2008 the platforms have a combined population of about 2,000 men and women, who work in week-long offshore shifts. At one point 5,000 people worked there.

Oil extraction

The

oil extraction Petroleum is a fossil fuel that can be drawn from beneath the earth's surface. Reservoirs of petroleum was formed through the mixture of plants, algae, and sediments in shallow seas under high pressure. Petroleum is mostly recovered from oil dri ...

is carried out from the shallow water portion of the Absheron geological trend.

Accidents

On 4 December 2015, three workers of

SOCAR The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic ( az, Azərbaycan Respublikası Dövlət Neft Şirkəti), largely known as SOCAR is fully state-owned national oil and gas company headquartered in Baku, Azerbaijan. The company produces oil and na ...

were reported missing after part of the living quarters fell into the sea due to a heavy storm.

In popular culture

* In 2008, a Swiss documentary crew led by film director Marc Wolfensberger filmed "La Cité du Pétrole / Oil Rocks – City above the Sea" in the settlement, which was released in 2009
Vimeo
* Neft Daşları is featured in a scene in the

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

film ''

The World Is Not Enough ''The World Is Not Enough'' is a 1999 spy film, the nineteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions and the third to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by Michael Apted, from an ori ...

'' (1999). * Neft Daşları is on the list in the

Guinness Book ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

as the oldest offshore oil platforms.

References

External links

Map of the area

Photos of Oil Rocks taken in 2013

English Russia: Oil Stones, A Soviet City in the Middle of the SeaLink to the film trailer Oil Rocks – City above the Sea
*