“And if the guards responded so fast, how then did they fail to prevent this act?” the Defense Minister demanded angrily, He examined the photographic, pass with palpable hatred in his eyes “What was this black-ass Muslim doing there in the first place?”
“Comrade, work in the Siberian fields is arduous, and we have had serious difficulties in filling the posts we have there. My predecessor decided to conscnpt experienced oil-field workers from the Baku region to Siberia. This was madness. You will recall that my first recommendation last year was to change this policy.”
“We have noted it, Mikhail Eduardovich,” the Chairman said. “Go on.”
“The guard post records all telephone and radio traffic. The response team was moving in under two minutes. Unfortunately, the guard post is located adjacent to the original control building. The current building was constructed three kilometers away when new computerized control equipment was obtained from the West two years ago. A new guard post was also supposed to have been built, and the proper materials were allocated for this purpose. It would appear that these building materials were misappropriated by the complex director and local Party secretary, for the purpose of building dachas on the river a few kilometers away. Both of these men have been arrested by my order, for crimes against the State,” Sergetov reported matter-of-factly. There was no reaction around the table. By unspoken consensus, those two men were sentenced to death; the formalities would be worked out by the proper ministries. Sergetov continued: “I have already ordered greatly increased security at all petroleum sites. Also on my orders, the families of the two known traitors have been arrested at their homes outside Baku and are being rigorously interrogated by State Security, along with all who knew and worked with them.
“Before the border guards were able to kill the traitors, they were able to sabotage the oil-field control systems in such a way as to create a massive conflagration. They were also able to wreck the control equipment so that even if the guard troops had been able to get a crew of engineers in to restore control, it is unlikely that anything would have been saved. The KGB troops were forced to evacuate the building, which was later consumed by the fire. There was nothing more they could have done.” Sergetov remembered the sergeant’s badly burned face, the tears flowing down over the blisters as he told his story.
“The fire brigade?” the General Secretary asked.
“More than half of them died fighting the fire,” Sergetov replied. “Along with over a hundred citizens who joined the battle to save the complex. Truly there is no blame to be assessed here, Comrade. Once this bastard Tolkaze began his devil’s work, it would have been as easy to control an earthquake. For the most part, the fire has been put out by now, due to the fact that most of the fuels stored in the refinery were consumed in about five hours; also because of the destruction of the wellheads in the oil field.”
“But how was this catastrophe possible?” a senior member asked. Sergetov was surprised by the quiet mood in the room. Had they met and discussed this affair already?
“My report of December 20 described the dangers here. This room quite literally controlled the pumps and valves for over a hundred square kilometers. The same is true of all of our large oil complexes. From the nerve center, a man familiar with control procedures could manipulate the various systems throughout the field at will, causing the entire complex quite simply to self-destruct. Tolkaze had such skill. He was an Azerbaijani chosen for special treatment for his intelligence and supposed loyalty, an honor student educated at Moscow State University and a member in good standing of the local Party. It would also seem that he was a religious fanatic capable of astounding treachery. All the people killed in the control room were friends of his-or so they thought. After fifteen years in the Party, a good salary, the professional respect of his comrades, even his own automobile, his last words were a shrill cry to Allah,” Sergetov said dryly. “The reliability of people from that region cannot be accurately predicted, Comrades.”
The Defense Minister nodded again. “So, what effect will this have on oil production?” Half the men at the table leaned forward to hear Sergetov’s answer:
“Comrades, we have lost thirty-four percent of our total crude oil production for a period of at least one year, possibly as many as three.” Sergetov looked up from his notes to see the impassive faces cringe as though from a slap. “It will be necessary to redrill every production well and finally reconstruct the pipelines from the fields to the refinery and elsewhere. The concurrent loss of the refinery is serious, but not an immediate concern since the refinery can be rebuilt, and in any case represents less than a seventh of our total refining capacity. The major injury to our economy will come from the loss of our crude oil production.
“In real terms, due to the chemical makeup of the Nizhnevartovsk oil, the net total production loss understates the actual impact on our economy. Siberian oil is ‘light, sweet’ crude, which means that it contains a disproportionately large amount of the most valuable fractions-those which we use to make gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuel, for example. The net loss in these particular areas is forty-four percent of our gasoline production, forty-eight percent of kerosene, and fifty percent of diesel. These figures are rough calculations I made on the flight back, but they should be accurate to within two percent. My staff will have more precise figures ready in a day or so.”
“Half?” the General Secretary asked quietly.
“Correct, Comrade,” Sergetov responded.
“And how long to restore production?”
“Comrade General Secretary, if we bring in every drilling rig and operate them around the clock, my rough estimate is that we can begin to restore production in twelve months. Clearing the site of wreckage will take at least three months, and another three will be needed to relocate our equipment and commence drilling operations. Since we have exact information for well locations and depths, the usual element of uncertainty is not part of the equation. Within a year-that is, six months after we commence the redrilling-we will begin to bring the production wells back on stream, and full restoration of the wells will be achieved within two more years. While all this is going on, we will need to replace the EOR equipment also-”
“And what might that be?” Defense asked.
“Enhanced Oil Recovery systems, Comrade Minister. Had these been relatively new wells, pressurized from underground gas, the fires might have lasted for weeks. As you know, Comrades, these are wells from which a good deal of oil has already been extracted. To enhance production we have been pumping water into the wells, which has the effect of forcing more oil out. It may also have had the effect of damaging the oil bearing strata. This is something our geologists are even now attempting to evaluate. As it was, when power was lost, the force driving the oil from the ground was removed, and the fires in the production fields rapidly began to run out of fuel. They were for the most part dying out when my flight left for Moscow.”
“So even three years from now production may not be completely restored?” the Minister of the Interior asked.
“Correct, Comrade Minister. There is simply no scientific basis for making an estimate of total production. The situation we have here has never happened before, either in the West or the East. We can drill some test wells in the next two or three months that will give us some indications. The staff engineers I left behind are making arrangements to begin the process as quickly as possible with equipment already at the site.”
“Very well,” the General Secretary nodded. “The next question is how long the country can operate on this basis.”
Sergetov went back to his notes. “Comrades, there is no denying that this is a disaster of unprecedented scale for our economy. The winter has drawn down our heavy oil inventories more than usual. Certain energy expenditures must remain relatively intact. Electrical power generation last year, for example, accounted for thirty-eight percent of our oil products, far more than planned, due to past disappointments in coal and gas production, which we had expected to reduce oil demand. The coal industry will require at least five years to restore due to failures in modernization. And gas drilling operations are currently slowed by environmental conditions. For technical reasons it is extremely hard to operate such equipment in extreme cold weather-”
“So make those lazy bastards on the drilling crews work harder!” suggested the chief of the Moscow Party.
“It is not the workers, Comrade.” Sergetov sighed. “It is the machines. Cold temperature affects metal more than men. Tools and equipment break simply because they are brittle with cold. Weather conditions make resupply of spare parts to the camps more difficult. Marxism-Leninism cannot dictate the weather.”