At a ceremony in the Oil & Natural Gas Museum in the presence of numerous guests the extension containing the Knowledge Tank has now been officially declared open.
To also demonstrate to the outside world the connection to the business of mineral oil, the extension looks like an oil tank. Although it doesn’t quite, because for reasons of planning and building permits the original design could not be put into effect.
A special technical feature to be seen in the basement of the extension is an original quintuplex piston pump that has been used for many decades to transport the pure oil from the Rühlermoor mineral oil field to the refinery in Lingen. The complete exhibit weighs an impressive 13 tons! It is framed by a panorama photo of the moor landscape around Twist with inset photos of the mineral-oil production process.
Now open to the public on the upper floor of the Knowledge Tank after many years of storage in cellars is an extensive library with literature on the subjects of earth sciences, mineral oil and natural gas, storage and refining technology, drilling, extraction and transport technology, energy and air-conditioning systems, raw materials, extractive industries and a whole lot more. Alongside specialist literature in a number of languages there are also company periodicals and magazines to look at.
Interactive touchscreens
Other new features are interactive touchscreens with which the user can search for resources, drill, extract and transport. And by the quintuplex pump, a bicycle pump and screen measurement system are used to demonstrate what pressure (in bar) means and what manual effort is required, for example, to pump up a bicycle tyre.
The Knowledge Tank project has a total volume of about € 375,000.00 and is funded by grants from the INTERREG Va-Programm Deutschland, the province of Lower Saxony, the Dutch province of Drenthe, the Rural District of Emsland, the Erdölmuseum e.V. Support Association with the Twist e.V. Homeland Association and the community of Twist as project lead partners. Funding aid by INTERREG is possible because the museum is an official place to go to in the Nature Park and, as such, is to contribute to making the Nature Park better known as a recreational area on both sides of the German-Dutch border.
The museum was first set up in the cellar of the traditionally-built “Heimathaus” in 1999. In 2009 it was given the form it had until recently. And then ten years later the annex with the “Knowledge Tank” was added. This provides information particularly about the origin, tapping, extraction and transport of mineral oil and natural gas and topic areas connected to these.
“ems-tv” has also broadcast a short film report about the opening of the museum extension: https://www.emstv.de/videobeitrag/erdoelmuseum-wird-attraktiver/
