The Tsar’s Banker

By 1879 the Nobels had more of their resources tied up in oil than in munitions, forming the Nobel Brothers Petroleum Producing Company. They built an 8-mile long pipeline from the Baku oil field to the Caspian Sea where they loaded oil onto the world’s first oil tanker, the Zoroaster. Within the next five years, they would own a rail system complete with tank cars and storage depots—all financed by Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, the Tsar’s banker.