Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

September 1662

Vijay's actions were resolute. After deciding to develop the petrochemical industry, he immediately decided to get the job done. He asked Ganesh to invite his asset manager, Baskaracharya, and the Minister of External Affairs, S. Jai Shankar.

Baskaracharya, as always, was in his office only a few minutes away from the Simhasana Bhavana, but Jai Shankar was out of town. It took a while to get a hold of him and for him to reach the capital.

However, by the end of the day, both of them were sitting in front of Vijay, looking at him respectfully.

Vijay spread out a map of several marked locations. Looking at it, Baskaracharya and Jaishankar examined the map with curiosity. They were confused—the markings were done all over the place without any logic behind them.

Even though Jaishankar was not adept in military strategies, he could tell that these were not strategic locations, no matter how he looked at it. Fortunately, Vijay soon solved the doubts he and Baskaracharya had in their hearts.

"Bhaskar, I need you to purchase a few thousand acres around the points that I have marked. If it is in the hands of the government, buy it from the government, and if it is in the hands of private individuals, buy it from them. It does not matter if you have to pay a little premium."

"So far, the places I need you to purchase in the Bharatiya Empire are Digbol in Ahom, Kevra Salt Range on the western side of Yudhaya Nagari, Ankleshwar in Solanki Puri, and Dera Bugti in Baluchistan."

Baskaracharya didn't know why His Majesty needed these lands, but since he needed them, he wouldn't question and would loyally fulfil his duty. He took over the document and nodded. "I will get it done, Your Majesty. But is there any geographical indicator to make sure that I am buying the right place?"

Vijay thought about it and answered, "Around the places that I have marked, there should be oil seeps. Simply take the oil seep as the centre and buy a few thousand acres around it."

Baskaracharya's brows furrowed. "Oil seeps?" He was confused. He didn't know what it was. He looked forward to an answer.

Before Vijay could respond, Jaishankar immediately understood what His Majesty implied. "It's the black sticky liquid that gushes out of the ground, isn't it, Your Majesty? It's somewhat similar to oil but way too thick." He had seen this so-called oil seep once when he went to the Middle East on a diplomatic task to Lalishtan, so he knew something about it.

Vijay nodded. "Yes, that black sticky liquid is called crude oil. It's found deep underground, just like minerals. Sometimes, when the pressure underground is too high, the rocks under which this crude oil is located get fissured, and the oil reaches the surface."

"The locations that I have given are confirmed locations of oil seeps after they have been reported by the locals," Vijay said seriously. But he was lying because he didn't have to ask anyone about it—he simply knew this knowledge from the memory he had in his previous life.

"Apart from the locations that I have given within the empire, there are several locations I want you to visit and purchase in the stead of the royal family."

Vijay passed over another document, which contained all the locations where oil seeps were confirmed outside the empire.

In total, there are five locations in South Asia, four locations in the Middle East, three locations in Southeast Asia, one location in Far East Siberia, three locations in Central Africa, and finally, four locations in the Arabian Peninsula.

Most of these locations are easy to handle because they have a very close trade relationship with the Bharatiya Empire. Not to mention, crude oil is not too valuable in this era in the first place.

He just had to have some sort of a deal with his allies for him to freely extract the crude oil on their lands. "Jai Shankar, I need you to negotiate with our trading partners and come to an understanding about how the crude oil will be operated."

"Crude oil can be considered one of the minerals, so you can use the same template. But I reckon they will not agree to the same conditions. Minerals have to be manually discovered, and it takes a lot of resources to discover them, so 10% of the proceeds going to the local economy is agreeable. But oil seeps are clearly visible to the naked eye—they probably will not be too happy if we force them to let us extract all the oil while only paying them 10%."

"So I need you to make the distinction. For oil seeps, I can allow up to 25% of the proceeds from the oil to be returned to the kingdom as a price. But for oil mines that are not discovered, I will not allow any more than 10%."

Jaishankar thought about it and nodded. "Understood, Your Majesty. I will make sure to be meticulous and leave no loopholes behind."

"Good!"

"I will take my leave then, Your Majesty. Please excuse me."

Only Baskaracharya and Vijay were left in the office room.

Vijay quickly pointed at the Toungoo Dynasty on the map and tapped it multiple times.

"The oil seep found in the Toungoo Kingdom is in a place called Yenangyaung. It's a large oil seep that is already operational, and the people are already making use of the crude oil coming out of it."

"I don't think King Narathihapate will allow us to extract the oil at a very cheap cost."

"But given that they want to maintain a good relationship with the Bharatiya Empire and my Dynasty, he will agree to even 15%. But just in case, I will allow you to close the deal even if you have to give up 25% of the proceedings, like the regulations of the government which is about to be drafted."

looking at how serious His Majesty looked, Baskaracharya understood how important the matter was, he had a dignified expression as he nodded. "Please rest assured, Your Majesty. I will get it done."

Vijay smiled with satisfaction. "Alright then, quickly start the acquisitions. I will be waiting for the good news."

---

A few minutes later an exasperated sai was heard from within the office

Turning his chair back and looking at the map, Vijay's expression turned somewhat complicated. Despite having control over the largest crude oil resources in the world in the form of absolute control over the Arabian Peninsula, he was left to import most of the crude oil.

If the steam technology was a bit more developed, Vijay could have used drilling equipment to directly drill for oil in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or the United Arab Emirates, which currently no strong force occupied apart from some Arab tribes. But unfortunately, the Bharatiya Empire or any country in the world, for that matter, does not have oil drilling equipment.

For now, he would have to settle for the oil seeps that come to the surface by themselves.

His plan was very simple: locate the natural oil seep, widen the oil seep by manually digging, and make it into a well. He would then line the walls with clay or stone to prevent contamination.

He had no intention of touching the underground rock layer because if, by mistake, the cracks through which the oil was coming out expanded, it might trigger the oil underground to blow out. Not only would this waste all the oil—since there was no proper method of collecting the oil that had gushed out of the ground like a water fountain—but it would also be very dangerous, as even a little spark could set off a fire, turning the fountain of oil into a fire fountain.

The next step traditionally was to take out the oil manually with containers, but Vijay had a better solution. He would simply modify the Devaraya Atmospheric Steam Engine from sucking out water from the mines to sucking out oil from the wells.

This should not be very hard. Increasing the size of the steam engine should do the trick. Also, if the containers used to store the crude oil were downstream from the seep, it would make things much easier, as gravity would do most of the transportation work.

Finally, after the oil in the well was sucked up, he would let the steam engine rest for a whole night until the well was filled up again the next day. The process would repeat itself until the oil in the well became less and less, after which he would have someone manually dig out the rock layer little by little so that the oil, even if the pressure underground was reduced, would still come up—given that the force required to surface had been reduced by the fissure manually created by the worker.

By this method, Vijay was sure that he could extract all the oil within at least 50 meters underground, given that it was the maximum extent to which the steam engine could operate.

For the current Bharatiya Empire, who did not need oil for combustion engines, the oil he would get from a minimum of 15 oil seeps and a maximum of 20 was plenty.

If he took one barrel of crude oil as 200 litres...

Then Ahom can produce a maximum of five barrels per day, Western Punjab can produce around 10 barrels per day, Ankleshwar in Solanki Puri can produce five barrels per day, Balochistan could produce 10 barrels, and finally, Toungoo Dynasty, having the only oil well in his list that is currently active, can produce a maximum of 300 barrels per day. That's like 60,000 litres of crude oil per day—that's sixty tons from a single location alone.

In fact, there was another location that was even more precious than all the locations available in the empire combined. Unfortunately, that location was in Baku, currently in Azerbaijan, under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Well, technically not under the direct control of the Ottoman Empire—it belonged to a warring family within the Safavid Empire—but in reality, it was under Ottoman influence.

This was the same oil well that was turned into the first-ever oil refinery in his previous life when Russia occupied it. It was one of the oldest and most widely extracted oil wells in the world. Oh well, he couldn't get everything.

Hence why Vijay was so adamant about buying the oil well in the Toungoo Dynasty. It was the next best alternative.

Moving on, both the Persian Kingdom and Lalishthan combined have over three different oil seeps. Mosul in Lalishthan can produce around 20 barrels of oil per day, Ahvaz in the Persian Kingdom can produce an impressive 150 barrels per day, and the other oil seep is found in the shared region of Kirkuk, capable of producing 100 barrels per day.

In fact, the Ahvaz oil field is very near to the Basra military base that is currently being built. Coincidentally, the Qatif oil field, located very close to Bahrain, is also in close proximity to the Basra military base, along with Qatar and Kuwait, but oil resources in these places could not be tapped just yet as they are underground.

Moving on to Southeast Asia, the small sultanate of Sabah has two different oil seeps, adding up to 30 barrels per day. It is the sultanate formed on the northern part of Kalimantan Island, so due to the military presence of the Bharatiya Empire in Southeast Asia, it is still very easy to get these resources at a very reasonable price. Maybe he would only have to pay 10% for these.

Finally, there is an oil seep found directly in one of the frontiers of the Bharatiya Empire, more specifically in the western part of Sumatra Island, capable of producing over 30 barrels of oil per day—very similar to the production capabilities of the Sultanate.

As for Far East Siberia, Vijay could only recall the Okha oil field, located on a large island along Russia's eastern coast, stretching from the Sea of Japan in the south to the Sea of Okhotsk in the north. If he moved quickly, he wouldn't have to compensate Peter, as the area was uninhabited. Okha, situated in the northern part of the island within an enclosed bay resembling a lake called Zaliv Urkt, provided a discreet location for extraction. Vijay could likely extract up to 15 barrels per day by stationing a small group of men and rotating a large merchant ship weekly. However, in the future, when trade boosts the economy of eastern Siberia, he would have no issue paying compensation.

Obtaining locations in Central Africa is a bit complicated because, while some of the locations are uninhabited, they are under the control of local powers. Negotiating with them to let go of the land will be a little complicated, but it is not impossible. Vijay is very hopeful that the agents sent by the Bharatiya Empire will be able to get the negotiation done, especially since the total oil produced by the three locations would amount to over 55 barrels per day.

Finally, obtaining land in the Arabian Peninsula should not be a problem because the area he chose is in the previous life countries of Oman and Yemen. All four locations he chose were in uninhabited areas, and he was definitely sure that the Imam was more than happy to sell the land to him, not to mention several thousand acres. Vijay guessed that he would even sell a hundred kilometres of land in exchange for Bharatiya foreign exchange.

He recently got to know that Varaha is a very costly currency in the Imamate due to how many things can be bought with it when compared to their own money.

If everything goes according to his minimum estimation, he would be able to produce over 413 barrels of crude oil per day. If it reaches the maximum estimation, then it can go up to 1,298 barrels per day.

Meaning the production of crude oil can vary anywhere from 82,600 litres per day to 259,600 litres per day. Per annum, the extraction of crude oil can reach anywhere from 2.97 billion litres to 6.48 billion litres.

That amount of oil, when turned into petrol or diesel, would not be enough even for a small city per year, but it is plenty to be used as fuel for lighting in a few cities and to kick-start the petrochemical industry in the Bharatiya Empire, laying down the foundation for oil refining and extraction in the Second Industrial Revolution.

P.S. Map in comment do check it out.