Daniel Yergin’s The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power brings to life stories from the early days of the oil industry, across the globe. It’s a book about oil, I was expecting that. But I did not expect to learn how Russian oil was linked to the creation of the Nobel Prize. So I did a tweetstorm on it.
📚 Weekend History Thread 📚
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
The story of how the Nobel Prize came to be has everything - oil, Russia, dynamite, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, obituaries and so much more.
👇🏻💥🏅👇🏻💥🏅👇🏻💥🏅👇🏻💥🏅 pic.twitter.com/99AyZHwN4Y
In 1837, a Swedish 🇸🇪 inventor named Immanuel Nobel emigrated to Russia🇷🇺, where the military was enthusiastically using his underwater mine. He failed when Russia switched to foreign procurement of underwater mines. pic.twitter.com/bgsZK5FtCh
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
The oldest son, born in 1829, was Robert. He was largely unsuccessful in a variety of businesses until his late 40s. pic.twitter.com/uQAUwhhBlf
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
Born 2 years later, in 1831, Ludvig was Immanuel’s second son. He became successful, developing the Nobel Wheel for Russian roads, and building a large armaments business. pic.twitter.com/3IvhThFVjq
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
His third son is the one you’ve probably heard of. Alfred was born in 1833, and made his fortune when he invented and patented dynamite in 1867. pic.twitter.com/tAiEL7CnCD
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
Back to Ludvig and Robert. Because Ludvig had won a contract to manufacture guns for the Russian government, he sent Robert to the Caucuses with money to buy Russian Walnut for the rifle stocks. Instead, in Baku, he took the 25,000 rubles and bought an oil refinery. pic.twitter.com/xqt5f7Psfs
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
Seeing Robert’s early success, Ludvig came to Baku to run the burgeoning oil empire, becoming “the Oil King of Baku.” The only problem was getting the oil out and over long distances. So Ludvig devised a solution. pic.twitter.com/devTFnwLPN
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
He would ship the oil in large tanks built directly into ships... or “in bulk.” Ludvig has invented the oil tanker. pic.twitter.com/FCOMWFnVpK
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
It worked. Under the Nobel Brothers, Russian crude production went from 600k barrels in 1874 to 10.8 million barrels a decade later. pic.twitter.com/VG9lh1Lj9H
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
Hungry for expansion, Ludvig needed capital, and turned to his brother, Alfred. Alfred provided him with his own $$$, and arranged a loan from Crédit Lyonnais - the first loan for which future petroleum production was used as collateral. The Nobels dominated the domestic market. pic.twitter.com/iMrORqXpoY
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
That’s when the Rothschilds entered the fray, financing the Nobels’ competitors in distributing Russian oil to Europe, where it competed for the first time with Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. By 1888, Russian oil production reached 23 million barrels - >80% of American production. pic.twitter.com/fBzdBnASvG
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
Even w/ all the new $$, a big remaining challenge was getting oil to the rest of Russia - bottleneck was getting cars on the Baku-Batum railroad over a 3,000 ft peak. The Nobel Brothers used Alfred’s invention -dynamite- to blow a hole through the mountain and build a pipeline. pic.twitter.com/nRjoJqkHJK
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
But before the tunnel was to be completed in 1889, Ludwig Nobel died of a heart attack in Cannes, France in 1888. pic.twitter.com/P6uWiMczXZ
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
Newspapers mistook Ludvig’s death for Alfred’s and wrote Alfred’s obituary instead, calling him the “dynamite king” and the “merchant of death.” pic.twitter.com/bmoiBkZXH4
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
Alfred brooded over these descriptions of his life’s work. He set out to change the way that history would remember him, rewriting his will to leave his money for the establishment of the prizes that would perpetuate his name in a way that would honor the best in human endeavor. pic.twitter.com/HZ9zOCp1WQ
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
And that, friends, is how we got the Nobel Prize. pic.twitter.com/HjIx3khDlO
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
(Source for 99% of this story: The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power by @DanielYergin)https://t.co/0cGcvTjWxP
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) August 10, 2019
