Robert Nobel

Robert Hjalmar Nobel ( born August 14, 1829 in Stockholm; † August 7, 1896 in Getå / Östergötland) was a Swedish industrialist, oil magnate and brother of Alfred Nobel.

Life

Robert Nobel initially spent two years at sea before he was in the tool factory of his father Immanuel Nobel in Saint Petersburg, Nobel & Söner, employed and studied chemistry. In the 1860s, Robert Nobel founded in Helsinki own factory to manufacture nitroglycerin.

In 1861 he married Paulina Sofia Carolina Lenngrén, who gave him the daughters Ingeborg Sofia and Tyra and the sons of Hjalmar and Ludvig Immanuel Immanuel.

In 1871 he returned to St. Petersburg and worked successfully in the factory of his brother Ludvig Nobel, including in arms production and the sale of civilian machines.

Oil business

At the request of his brother Ludvig he went in 1873 in the Caucasus, Baku. He should buy walnut wood for the rifle production, but recognized the chances of prospective petroleum boom. The brothers secured by the Russian State Research and exploitation rights for naphtha in the fields on the Caspian Sea. Together they developed from 1876 onwards with cheap purchases, successful drilling and refining facilities innovative local oil sources. In 1877 they set about their invention of a pipeline for the first time into action and fell so dramatically the cost of transporting oil.

Your company, which was founded on 15 May 1878 a capital of 3 million rubles Naftaproduktionsbolaget Bröderna Nobel ( Branobel ), was able to hold its own against the competition, especially against the Paris branch of the Rothschild family and emerging entrepreneur John D. Rockefeller. It was one of the richest oil companies of that time.

Retreat

1881 Robert Nobel drew from business and went back largely, in poor health, with his wife and children via Switzerland to Sweden. He sat down in Getå in Norrköping to rest, but remained active as an inventor and engineer.