Oil Rocks is an Azerbaijani oil-rig-cum-city in the Caspian sea. It is, we read…
… actually a functional city with a population of about 5,000 and over 200 km (120 mi) of streets built on piles of dirt and landfill… The facility is poorly maintained, with miles of roads now submerged beneath the sea. Around some worker’s dormitories, the waterline now stands at the second-floor windows. Although a full one-third of the Oil Rocks complex’s 600 wells are inoperative or inaccessible, operations have continued without a significant increase in investment. The site, despite its imperfections, still produces over half of the total crude oil output of Azerbaijan.
An artificial city at sea, born not of idealism but of greed and the need for fuel, now partially disintegrating, sinking into the sea whose riches it sought to conquer. Interesting.
Apr 26, 2010