THE NAl'lirUA INDL'MUY. 259 



It is known that, in 1891, 35 million ponds of refuse, or 14 per cent, were 

 •consumed in the processes of distillation et cetera, and for other local requirements; 

 hence the actual loss is about 10 per cent of the total amount of naphtha treated at the 

 works, and this loss is mainly due to the fact that, owing to the great cheapness of 

 the raw naphtha, about 3 kopecks at the works in 1891, it is treated without 

 any care, all the more so as in that year the price of the reiined kerosene fell to 7 

 -kopecks per pond, and the price of the refuse was about 4 kopecks per poud, that is, 

 higher than that of the raw naphtha. All this shows clearly that the chief product 

 of the Baku naphtha works is the naphtha refuse, and that the most important and, 

 from their varied properties, valuable component parts of the Baku naphtha, such as 

 the safety oil, vaseline, et cetera, are now burned as simple fuel without finding their 

 proper and more valuable applications. 



The importance of Naphtha fuel. 



The common raw Baku naphtha, containing as it does highly volatile benzine 

 -and kerosene, cannot be used directly as fuel owing to its inflammability and danger 

 from Are. But those varieties of heavy natural Caucasian naphtha such as the Bina- 

 godinsk naphtha near Baku, and many of the Kouban, Groznensk, Shemakhinsk and 

 Transcaspian naphthas, which do not contain kerosene, lubricating and paraffine oils, 

 or contain very little, as well as the refuse obtained in the treatment of raw naphtha, 

 composed almost entirelj^ of a mixture of hydrocarbons as they are, form a first 

 ■class fuel in every respect. Such are the Baku naphtha refuse. Now, when in the 

 absence of a Baku-Batoum pipe line it is impossible to utilize tho entire mass of the 

 naphtha produced, the employement of this refuse as fuel forms the most natural, 

 although exclusively temporary phenomenon which Eussia now takes advantage of 

 to a somewhat large extent. Thus, about 140 million pouds of naphtha refuse are 

 now annually consumed in Eussia, about 30 million pouds being used at Baku itself 

 for the naphtha and other local works; about 10 million pouds in other parts of 

 Transcaucasia and in the Transcaspian regions; and about 100 million pouds on 

 the Caspian Sea and Volga, and in the interior. It must be remembered that, when 

 the Baku refuse obtained from the ordinary naphtha yielding kerosene and lubrica- 

 ting oils finds another and more valuable application as a source of safety oils, vaseline 

 and illuminating gas, this refuse might be replaced not only by coal from the Donets 

 and Urals, which might be transported along the Donets-Volga Eailway and river 

 Kama respectively, but also by the heavy natural naphtha which is abundantly dis- 

 tributed over the Caucasus, but is not at present exploited owing to the excess of 

 the lighter ordinary Baku naphtha. 



Leaving aside the question of the possibility of a more valuable utilization of 

 this naphtha, the high qualities of the naphtha fuel far surpass those of the best 

 kinds of coal even in respect to their calorific power, not to mention other advantages 

 «uch as facility of carriage, safety for storage, generally in iron reservoirs, the absence 

 of the necessity of stokerage, the uniform supply of fresh fuel to the hearth, the 

 facility of having a total intermixture with the air by means of various kinds of 

 |)ulverizers or tzers, the easy possibility of obtaining a maximum temperature, and the 



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