Oil rigs and refineries

[<k>]

50 fils coin of the United Arab Emirates.



Nigerian 1 kobo

Here are two designs of oil derricks.

If they look similar, that's because they were both designed by Geoffrey Colley.

[<k>]

Brazil, 20 centavos, 1978.

[<k>]

Colombia, 5 pesos, 1980.

[Figleaf]

Romania, 3 lei.  Cracker with drillers left. Train below. Wall to stop capitalist spies. Sociallist arrt.

Peter

[<k>]

Mozambique, 10 meticais, 1980.

[Figleaf]

Another oil refinery.

It is no coincidence that you find many of these industrial complexes on coins of (semi-)communist regimes. The communist model of economic development puts much weight on heavy industry. The model didn't work, of course. Making energy and steel are not ends by themselves, but a means towards an an end: private consumption. This is lost on communist theoreticians, because they measure production, not wealth, let alone welfare.

There are AFAIK no factories on Chinese coins. There is a reason. When China became communist, it had an agriculture-based economy. Mao was quite unable to start a significant heavy industry. His solution was to encourage mini smelters for small-scale production. They proved to be highly inefficient and quite polluting, but if you measure production only, advantages of scale mean nothing. Only capacity counts.

I visited the German-built Baoshan steel plant in the early eighties, when it was gleaming new. It is a continuous casting plant, meaning that the heat of the smelting process is re-used. Starting up the plant is costly, but once it is started up, it is quite efficient. The plant was started up for the occasion of our visit. It ran for a few minutes, spectacularly producing an amount of metal and was shut down again. We were told unofficially, that when the plant ran, there was no electricity left for the area around it, including Baoshan district. The railroad wasn't finished and the port was even less finished, making it difficult to get ore into the plant and taking steel out. Such was the waste of large plants.

The story ends well; the plant now runs well, port and railroad are finished and heavily used. The Chinese government has discovered that its survival depends on private consumption, not production. That also means that it is unlikely we'll see a circulation coin with Baoshan on it.

Peter

[<k>]

Romania is very strong on this sort of theme.  5 lei, 1978.

[chrisild]

Was. Actually the one you show us here is dated 1978, and that was the last one with such an "industrial infrastructure" design. After that, no new designs for regular circulation coins until 1990. Fortunately there is Transnistria to the rescue, even though it's only a collector coin. See Romanian coins.

Christian

[<k>]

There is an oil derrick to the left of the trees in this coat of arms.

It appears on the obverse of the Romanian 5 bani coin of 1956.

[<k>]

Poland, 2 zloty, 2003.  150th anniversary of the oil and gas industry.

[<k>]

Canada, 25 cents, 2005.  Oil derrick, Alberta.

Essential for allowing your cows and flowers to thrive, as you can see.

[<k>]

Algeria, 5 dinars, 1972.  An oil drilling tower.

[<k>]

Azerbaijan, 2007, 50 qapik.  More oil derricks.

[Figleaf]

All these oil-related coins remind me of the half-explained, but very real fact that natural resources (whether oil, diamond, poppy or something else) tend to work negatively on development, especially when the population is relatively small. I think they create a lop-sided economy, with a sector awash in cash, the rest short of cash. Naturally, cash becomes cheap for those who profit from it, so it works out as corruption and government by maffia. The worst example may be Nigeria, a failed state floating on oil money. Crime has become normal, honesty is punishable, if need be by death. Refusing prostitution may get you hurt. Accepting an order may be the end of your company if you can't afford non-payment.

Developed countries are not immune, though. In the 1980's, there was much talk of the Dutch disease: spending income from non-renewable resources on entitlements. This is why Norway started its oil fund. I think the fund is basically a way to prevent the NOK from rising, making all other sectors of the Norwegian economy uncompetitive. Can you imagine what would happen if North Sea oil income would suddenly stop now that Britain is trying to build down its national debt? Natural resources look like a windfall, to be celebrated on a coin, but some countries may just have been better off without it.

Peter

[<k>]

France, 10 francs, 1974.