History
Emmanuel Nobel Controlled More Oil Than Standard Oil Before WWI
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The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel
"By his estimation, the town now contained the aristocracy of half of Petrograd, assorted government ministries, and several relatives of the murdered Tsar Nicholas II. When World War I started, Nobel controlled more oil than anyone in the world. It was far bigger even than Standard Oil."
Emmanuel Nobel's Russian petroleum empire was larger than Rockefeller's Standard Oil by 1914, controlling the world's most abundant oil reserves in southern Russia. World War I became the first mechanized war requiring massive fuel supplies for submarines, planes, and navies, making Nobel's oil the prize every power sought to control during the conflict and subsequent Bolshevik Revolution.
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