«Srednee Priob'e» vs «Sibirskogo Priural'ya» (oil prospecting in the Khanty-Mansiysk national district in the 1950s)

The article analyzes the strategy of prospecting and exploration works on the territory of the Khanty-Mansiysk National Okrug in the 1950s, on the eve of the era of "great geological discoveries". The factors that determined the long-term localization of oil prospecting on the periphery of the West Siberian Lowland, in the Siberian Cis-Urals, after the discovery of the Berezovsky gas (1953) and Shaimsky oil (1960) fields are revealed. It is shown how this affected the financing and scope of work of the expeditions of the Middle Ob region, which, as a result, delayed the discovery of the West Siberian oil and gas province. The data presented in the article confirm that, unlike the Tyumen Geological Administration, which was slow to enter this area, Novosibirsk geologists intensified oil prospecting in the Shirotny Ob region and, to a large extent, prepared the discovery of the Megionskoye and Ust-Balykskoye fields.