Fragment of the Limbit-Polmin bituminous surface

The item presented here is a fragment of the bituminous surface coming from the Józef Piłsudski bridge in Kraków. A steel structure mounted on the bridge was adorned with a bronze inscription reading “Limbit Polmin”, which was both the name of the product and of its builder. Polmin Państwowa Fabryka Olejów Mineralnych w Drohobyczu, operating in the area of the Borysław-Drohobycz Oil Basin (now a part of Ukraine), was established in 1909 as a crude oil refinery. In the 1920s and 1930s, Polmin was one of the world’s largest and most modern enterprises of its kind. It offered a wide range of crude oil fraction distillation and derivative products. One such product was a bituminous surface patented by the refinery and named Limbit. It consisted of kerosene-derived asphalt mixed with crushed dolomite rock. Manufacturer: Polmin Państwowa Fabryka Olejów Mineralnych w Drohobyczu, 1933 Inv. No.: MIM1383/IV-55 Model prepared on the basis of photogrammetric measurements. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA