It is clear that the Soviet demand for oil products grows in correspondence with! the development of mechanization in every branch of the national life, but specially agriculture, There are now more than 500,000 tractors in the country, and the monthly automobile production probably is around 50,000, The Baku region is fortunate in that it is close to rich food-producing areas of the-north Caucasus, but in the winter months its remote position on the mid-western shore of the Caspian Sea makes transportation difficult, Much oil traffic from Baku goes by barge to Astrakhan, thence up the Volga, but that is impossible in winter months, Since 1930, however, the facilities for delivering the Baku output have more than doubled by the construction of a new pipe une from Baku to Batum, about 500 miles of 10-inch pipe with an annual capacity of 1,500,000 ions. There is also an 8-inch pipeline which was installed before the war, with the annual capacity of 1,000,000 tons.
Batum and, for that matter, gil the Black Sea ports are ice-free throughout the year, with the exception, of the briefest spells of unusually cold weather, which might temporarily block Odessa. Batum, like Baku, is equipped with modern refineries and extensive storage tanks. The Soviet Black Sea tanker fleet is sufficiently big and modern to handle the pipeline output not only from Batum but also from Tuapse, which is linked to the Grozny oil field by a 400-mile pipe line completed in 1929,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.