Maykop Oil Field

[Al Carter]

According to Irvings' Göring: A Biography, the retreating Russians from the Maykop Oil Fields dropped “unremovable hundred-pound steel “mushrooms” down each bore-hole.” Has anyone else heard of this, and does anyone have any information on these “mushrooms” and what made them unremovable?

Al Carter

[Juha Hujanen]

Never heard of that but Russiains did destroy pumping equipments and buildings quite complete.They did take some of them as they withdrew and dig some to ground.
All power plants and wires were also destroyed and roads were in bad shape to bring new equipment.Germans never managed to make oil fields operational in those 5 months they hold them.

[Punk_Waffen]

I to heard about the steel balls they dropped in, but dont remember wher ei heard it from.

[Dora]

Al,
I learned from one source that the Russians poured cement down the bores of the wells to prevent the Germans from using them. See:

"Stopped at Stalingrad, The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East, 1942-1943" By Joel Hayward, University of Kansas Press, 1998. Page 149.
Dora

[Karri]

Not quite sure about this, but I've read from somewhere that the Russians didn't get those oil fields functional until years after the war...?

[Darrin]

Al,
I learned from one source that the Russians poured cement down the bores of the wells to prevent the Germans from using them. See:

"Stopped at Stalingrad, The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East, 1942-1943" By Joel Hayward, University of Kansas Press, 1998. Page 149.
Dora

If it was just cement it would not be such a big obstacle. The wells had to be found by drilling thousand of feet through rock cement should be farily easy.

Rus oil production in the whole area declined during the war. As old wells were used up new ones were found farther back in safer postions. Rus oil prod declined in 41 and after, never recovering to its early war levels.