Emanuel Nobel

Emanuel Nobel was a Swedish-Russian businessman who built his family's Russian oil company, Branobel, into the largest oil producer in Europe. Born in Saint Petersburg, the eldest son of Ludvig Nobel and nephew of Alfred Nobel, Emanuel took over leadership of the Nobel Brothers Petroleum Production Company after his father's death in 1888. Under his direction the Baku-based company expanded its production, refining and distribution network across the Russian Empire, and in the years before the First World War Branobel was producing roughly a third of Russia's crude oil and supplying about two thirds of domestic consumption, making it one of the largest and most technically advanced oil enterprises in the world at the time. Emanuel continued his family's tradition of applying industrial engineering rigor to oil extraction and transport, building on the pipeline and tanker innovations pioneered under his father and uncle, and his stewardship of Branobel made the Nobel name nearly as associated with the early oil industry as with the prizes his uncle Alfred later endowed.