Petroleum, Institutes of

higher educational institutions that train specialists for the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries. In 1973 there were five complex petroleum institutes in the USSR: the M. Azizbekov Azerbaijan Institute of Petroleum and Chemistry, the Groznyi Institute of Petroleum (founded in 1922 as a polytechnic school), the Ivano-Frankovsk Institute of Petroleum and Gas (founded in 1968), the Academician I. M. Gubkin Moscow Institute of the Petrochemical and Gas Industry, and the Ufa Institute of Petroleum (founded in 1944).

All institutes of petroleum have day departments; evening, correspondence, and preparatory divisions; and graduate schools. Engineers are trained in the following specialties: geology of and prospecting for oil and gas deposits; geophysical prospecting and surveying methods for mineral deposits; technology and integrated mechanization of oil and gas field development; design and operation of oil and gas pipelines, gas storage facilities, and petroleum bulk plants; construction of oil and gas pipelines, gas storage facilities, and petroleum bulk plants; oil and gas field machinery and equipment; drilling of oil and gas wells; petrochemical synthesis; automation and integrated mechanization of chemical engineering processes; automated control systems; and economics and organization of the petroleum and gas industry. The term of study is five to 5½ years. Graduating students of petroleum institutes defend a diploma project and become qualified as mining engineers or mechanical engineers (production-engineers, economic planning engineers, and so on). The Azerbaijan, Moscow, and Ufa institutes of petroleum confer doctoral and candidate’s degrees; the Groznyi and Ivano-Frankovsk institutes confer only the candidate’s degree.