Bnito

Bnito(from Russian "Batumskoye Neftepromyshlennoye i Torgovoye Obschestvo", "Батумское нефтепромышленное и торговое общество" ),or theCaspian and Black Sea Oil Company,was an oil business founded in 1883byAlphonse Rothschildof theRothschild banking family of France.

Context

By the early 1880's Russian crude oil production had increased to about 10.8 million barrels a year, about a third of American petroleum production at the time. The trade in that period was dominated by the SwedishNobel Family,pioneered byRobert NobelandLudvig Nobel.The Nobels focused on a Northern route, sending oil from Baku north towards the Russian Heartlands and from there exporting throughthe Baltic Sea.

In an attempt to break the Nobel's hold over Russian crude, a pair of minor Russian businessmen, Palashnikov and Bunge, approached the French branch of the Rothschild Family to finance a railway line fromBaku,inAzerbaijan,to the town ofBatumion theBlack Sea.Mayer (Alphonse) de Rothschildsecured the operation and received a package of mortgages on Russian oil production facilities along with favorableofftake agreementsfor the transportation of crude into Western Europe. Seeing that Russian oil exports could be more competitive than US oil exports, the Rothschilds bought Bnito, and turned it into the Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la mer Noire (The Caspian and Black Sea Oil Company). Other Russian oil companies were purchased by the Rothschild and theDeutsche Bankto consolidate the Russian oil market.The company pioneered carrying oil intankersinstead of wooden barrels and iron bidons.

By the turn of the century, the Caspian and Black Sea Oil Company started to compete withStandard Oilfor international exports.

In 1912, the company was acquired byRoyal Dutch Shell.The Rothschilds became shareholders of the latter.

See also

• Black Sea energy