Bnito (from Russian "Batumskoye Neftepromyshlennoye i Torgovoye Obschestvo", "Батумское нефтепромышленное и торговое общество"), or the Caspian and Black Sea Oil Company, was an oil business founded in 1883[1] by Alphonse Rothschild of the Rothschild banking family of France.[2]
Context
In 1883, the Swede Robert Noble approached the French Rothschilds to finance a railway line from Baku to the Black Sea. Mayer (Alphonse) de Rothschild secured the operation and received oil rights in the area in return. Seeing that Russian oil exports could be more competitive than US oil exports, the Rothschilds bought Bnito, and turned it into the Société Commerciale et Industrielle de Naphte Caspienne et de la mer Noire (The Caspian and black Sea Oil Company). Other Russian oil companies were purchased by the Rothschild and the Deutsche Bank to consolidate the Russian oil market.[3] The company pioneered carrying oil in tankers instead of wooden barrels and iron bidons.[4]
By the turn of the century, the Caspian and Black Sea Oil Company started to compete with Standard Oil for international exports.[3]
In 1912, the company was acquired by Royal Dutch Shell.[5] The Rothschilds became shareholders of the latter.[3]