Sang Noir

History

The corporation known as Sang Noir is among the youngest of the Seilurid Empire's major corporations and has seen rapid growth in the past two decades. This is owed in part due to the frequent investments by the Imperial Crown which is a major shareholder, but also due to the fact that it occupies an enviable position as a near monopoly in a market that seems to be in permanent expansion and for which demand never seems to be possibly met despite the increasing enthusiasm in the field.
The history of Sang Noir is tied to the recent history of the Errand Fields - formerly Errand Desert - and to the discovery of oil itself. In 1843, a small expedition in the desert attempted to dig down for water sources using newly-designed machinery. Rather than strike water however, they found a small pocket of a strange, viscous black liquid. This serie of event would unfold several more times by expeditions on the outlying portions of the Errand Fields, provoking great curiosity in the liquid.
Though the many properties of Oil would remain a mystery for some time still, its ability to substitute coal as a source of energy and heat became quickly known, and demand for the resource both as a curiosity and for pragmatic reasons exploded. This was especially true amid the Unam-Animist faith that saw the extraction of oil - a process that appeared to barely disturb the earth - as a better alternative to the large-scale mining operations of the mineral sector.
These small pockets however became exhausted by 1866, and new expeditions were mounted to find more, larger ones. Among these was a young and brazen Sibir pioneer by the name of Andrei Kovalev. Hardy like any other Sibir, but savvy like a Bourguignon entrepreneur, Kovalev would drive his expedition deeper than any other into the sand-washed dunes of the Errand Fields, eventually finding the first truly massive oil deposit. In 1876, he would go on to become the main benefactor of the oil well he discovered as a teenager, and would use the profits to acquire the rights to the wells of other expedition teams.
This coalition of oil wells under a single Magnate, with assistance from the Imperial Crown that saw immense value in Oil, created the entity known as Sang Noir - Produits Pétrolifères. 1885 marked the completion of the biggest oil extraction complex with on-site refinement by thermal cracking. The next 20 years would then be marked by Sang Noir's project to build petroleum pipelines to supply the two main Seilurid ports and naval bases in Elfame and Havre Solitaire directly with crude oil from the Errand Oil Fields.

Type:
Petrochemicals
Specialization:
Oil extraction and refining

Founding Date

1876

Type

Corporation, Energy Industry

Parent Organization

Seilurid Empire

Location

Errand Fields