Romania.
As a country that had only recently gained independence from the Ottoman Empire, the former Grand Duke of Romania had now been elevated to King of Romania—Carol I.
In the economic structure of the Kingdom of Romania, oil was an important industry. Aside from that, Romania was scarcely any different from other agricultural nations.
In the region where the newest oil fields were being developed, the Romanian Oil Development Company had drilled three new wells and built a refinery using the latest technology. On the foundation of Romanian oil refining, it would develop more petroleum by-products.
The so-called Romanian Oil Development Company was also one of Ernst's enterprises, a foothold in his arrangement of oil resources. Of course, Romania's oil resources were not as abundant as imagined, but it truly was an excellent place for novices to level up. In other words, East Africa was training its own future oil workers in Romania.
Before the Hohenzollern Conglomerate entered the picture, Romania's oil development and utilization had in fact been mere small-scale tinkering. Its production methods were also extremely backward, relying entirely on manually dug well pits.
After the Hohenzollern Conglomerate invested, however, Romanian oil development entered the fast lane. At first, Hechingen simply imported large quantities of machinery from the United States to increase production.
The American oil industry was almost completely monopolized by Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company, which held roughly ninety percent of the American oil market. Next year, that figure would further expand to ninety-five percent.
Unlike the United States, Europe was a region poor in oil. Of course, Ernst meant Western Europe. Eastern Europe was different: Tsarist Russia possessed quite abundant oil resources, while Romania and the Austro-Hungarian Empire both had oil deposits. Even partitioned Poland had some oil reserves. Tsarist Russia had resources but no