The modern petroleum industry along with its outputs and applications started in the 1800s, although the local use of oil goes back many centuries. Petroleum's status as a key component of politics, society, and technology has its roots in the coal and kerosene industry of the late nineteenth century. One of the earliest instances of this is the refining of paraffin from crude oil. Abraham Gesner developed a process to refine a liquid fuel (which he would later call kerosene) from coal, bitumen and oil shale; it burned more cleanly and was cheaper than whale oil. James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage when he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a thicker oil suitable for lubricating machinery. The world's first refineries and modern oil wells were established in the mid-nineteenth century. While petroleum industries developed in several countries during the nineteenth century, the two giants were the United States and the Russian Empire, specifically that part of it that today forms the territory of independent Azerbaijan. Together, these two countries produced 97% of the world's oil over the course of the nineteenth century.
Over the 20th century, oil became a resource of increasing strategic importance. When oil-fired turbines replaced steam engines in warships, control of oil supplies became a factor in military strategy—and played a key role in World War II. The use of the internal combustion engine for automobiles and trucks in the turn of the twentieth century was a critical factor in the explosive growth of the industry in the United States, Europe, Middle East and later the rest of the world. After the dominance of coal waned in the mid-1950s, oil received significant media coverage and its importance on modern economies increased greatly, being a major factor in several energy crises.
The concern of oil reserve depletion has brought new developments to light such as commercial-scale fracking and the increasing usage of cleaner energy. In the twentieth century issues of air pollution led to government regulation. In the early twenty-first century, environmental issues regarding global warming from oil and gas (in addition to coal) makes the industry politically controversial.
Early history
According to Herodotus, more than four thousand years ago natural asphalt was employed in the construction of the walls and towers of Babylon. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, one of the tributaries of the Euphrates. This fact was confirmed by Diodorus Siculus. Herodotus mentioned pitch spring on Zacynthus (Ionian islands, Greece). Also, Herodotus described a well for bitumen (very thick oil) and oil near Ardericca in Cessia.
In China, petroleum was used more than 2000 years ago. In I Ching, one of the earliest Chinese writings cites the use of oil in its raw state without refining was first discovered, extracted, and used in China in the first century BC. In addition, the Chinese were the first to use petroleum as fuel as early as the fourth century BC.
The earliest known gas wells were drilled in China in AD 347 or earlier. They had depths of up to about and were drilled using bits attached to bamboo poles. The gas was burned to evaporate brine and produce salt. By the tenth century, extensive bamboo pipelines connected gas wells with salt springs. The ancient records of China and Japan are said to contain many allusions to the use of natural gas for lighting and heating. Petroleum was known as burning water in Japan in the seventh century. In his book Dream Pool Essays written in 1088, the scientist and statesman Shen Kuo of the Song dynasty coined the word 石油 (Shíyóu, literally "rock oil") for petroleum, which remains the term used in contemporary Chinese and Japanese (Sekiyu).
The first streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region. In the ninth century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan. These fields were described by the Arab geographer Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī in the tenth century, and by Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads. Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the twelfth century. It has also been present in Romania since the thirteenth century, being recorded as păcură.Istoria Romaniei, Vol II, p. 300, 1960
Originally, various forms of the terms "Naphta", "Asphalt" and "Bitumen" were used for the liquid and solid forms of Petroleum. The origin of the term "Petroleum" stems from monasteries in southern Italy where it was in use by the end of the first millennium as an alternative for the older term "naphta".van Dijk, J.P. (2022); Unravelling the Maze of Scientific Writing Through the Ages: On the Origins of the Terms Hydrocarbon, Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Methane. Amazon Publishers, 166 pp. PaperBack Edition B0BKRZRKHW. For the volatile forms of hydrocarbons, now known as "Methane" or "Natural Gas", terms came only in use during the seventeenth century and later.
The earliest mention of petroleum in the Americas occurs in Sir Walter Raleigh's account of the Trinidad Pitch Lake in 1595; while thirty-seven years later, the account of a visit of a Franciscan, Joseph de la Roche d'Allion, to the oil springs of New York was published in Gabriel Sagard's Histoire du Canada. A Finnish born Swede, scientist and student of Carl Linnaeus, Peter Kalm, in his work Travels into North America published first in 1753 showed on a map the oil springs of Pennsylvania.
In 1710 or 1711 (sources vary) the Russian-born Swiss physician and Greek teacher Eirini d'Eyrinys (or Eirini d'Eirinis) discovered asphaltum at Val-de-Travers, Neuchâtel. He established a bitumen mine (de la Presta) there in 1719 that operated until 1986.(broken link) Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Geneva. accessed 2007-10-26Le bitume et la mine de la Presta (Suisse), Jacques Lapaire, Mineraux et Fossiles No 315 "Asphaltum" Stoddart's Encyclopaedia Americana (1883) pages 344–345Eirinis' paper, "Dissertation sur la mine d'asphalte contenant la manière dont se doivent régler Messieurs les associés pour son exploitation, le profit du Roy, & celui de la Société, & ce qui sera dû à Mr d'Erinis à qui elle apartient 'per Ligium feudum' " is held at the BPU Neuchâtel – Fonds d'étude [Ne V] catalogue
In 1745 under the Empress Elizabeth of Russia the first oil well and refinery were built in Ukhta by Fiodor Priadunov. Through the process of distillation of the "rock oil" (petroleum) he received a kerosene-like substance, which was used in oil lamps by Russian churches and monasteries (though households still relied on candles).
Oil sands were mined from 1745 in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn, Alsace under the direction of Louis Pierre Ancillon de la Sablonnière, by special appointment of Louis XV.History of Pechelbronn oil The Pechelbronn oil field was active until 1970, and was the birthplace of companies like Antar and Schlumberger. The first modern refinery was built there in 1857.
Modern history
Coal oil The modern history of petroleum began in the nineteenth century with the refining of paraffin from crude oil. The Scottish chemist James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage in the Riddings colliery at Alfreton, Derbyshire from which he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a thicker oil suitable for lubricating machinery. The new oils were successful, but the supply of oil from the coal mine soon began to fail (eventually being exhausted in 1851). Young, noticing that the oil was dripping from the sandstone roof of the coal mine, theorized that it somehow originated from the action of heat on the coal seam and from this thought that it might be produced artificially.
Following up this idea, he tried many experiments and eventually succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at a low heat, a fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. Young found that by slow distillation he could obtain a number of useful liquids from it, one of which he named "paraffine oil" because at low temperatures it congealed into a substance resembling paraffin wax.
The production of these oils and solid paraffin wax from coal formed the subject of his patent dated 17 October 1850. In 1850 Young & Meldrum and Edward William Binney entered into partnership under the title of E.W. Binney & Co. at Bathgate in West Lothian and E. Meldrum & Co. at Glasgow; their works at Bathgate were completed in 1851 and became the first truly commercial oil-works and oil refinery in the world, using oil extracted from locally mined torbanite, shale, and bituminous coal to manufacture naphtha and lubricating oils; paraffin for fuel use and solid paraffin were not sold till 1856.
Kerosene Abraham Pineo Gesner, a Canadian geologist developed a process to refine a liquid fuel from coal, bitumen and oil shale. His new discovery, which he named kerosene, burned more cleanly and was less expensive than competing products, such as whale oil. In 1850, Gesner created the Kerosene Gaslight Company and began installing lighting in the streets in Halifax and other cities. By 1854, he had expanded to the United States where he created the North American Kerosene Gas Light Company at Long Island, New York. Demand grew to where his company's capacity to produce became a problem, but the discovery of petroleum, from which kerosene could be more easily produced, solved the supply problem.
Ignacy Łukasiewicz improved Gesner's method to develop a means of refining kerosene from the more readily available "rock oil" ("petr-oleum") seeps, in 1852, and the first rock oil mine was built in Bóbrka, near Krosno in central European Galicia (Poland) in 1854. These discoveries rapidly spread around the world, and Meerzoeff built the first modern Russian refinery in the mature oil fields at Baku in 1861. At that time Baku produced about 90% of the world's oil.
Oil wells What constitutes the first commercial oil well is not entirely clear and there is no general consensus. The following summary draws from that in Vassiliou (2018).Vassiliou, Marius. Historical Dictionary of the Petroleum Industry, 2nd Edition. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. Edwin Drake's 1859 well near Titusville, Pennsylvania is popularly considered the first modern well. Drake's well is probably singled out because it was drilled, not dug; because it used a steam engine; because there was a company associated with it; and because it touched off a major boom.