Vladimir Shukhov

Vladimir Shukhov was a Russian engineer and polymath who made foundational contributions to the oil industry. In 1891 he patented what became known as the Shukhov cracking process, a method of thermal cracking that broke heavier crude oil fractions into more valuable lighter products, a patent that later put him in direct competition with a similar process developed by Standard Oil. He was also a pioneering pipeline engineer, building the first oil pipeline in the Russian Empire between Balakhany and Cherny Gorod near Baku in 1878, and later designing the eight hundred thirty five kilometer Baku to Batumi kerosene pipeline. Shukhov additionally designed innovative oil tanker barges that used less than half the metal of earlier designs, including Russia's first seaworthy oil tanker.