History of the petroleum industry

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.

[1] 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.

When diesel fuel replaced steam engines in warships, control of oil supplies became a factor in military strategy—and played a key role in World War II.

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.

In the early twenty-first century, environmental issues regarding global warming from oil and gas (in addition to coal) makes the industry politically controversial.

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.

[4] 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).

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.

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.

Abraham Pineo Gesner, a Canadian geologist developed a process to refine a liquid fuel from coal, bitumen and oil shale.

Also, a well was drilled in 1857 to a depth of 280 ft by the American Merrimac Company in La Brea (Spanish for “Pitch”) in southeast Trinidad in the Caribbean.

[30] Distillation of oil started halfway through the eighteenth century in small refinaries (called "distillaries") in the Ural, Galicia (now NE Ukraine), and in the Russian district of Mozdovsky.

[31] This refinery obtained, on the basis of a contract concluded in October 1856 between Teodor Mehedinţeanu and the City Hall of Bucharest, the exclusive right to supply the illumination of the Wallachian capital with oil lamp.

New oil fields were discovered nearby throughout the late nineteenth century and the area developed into a large petrochemical refining centre and exchange.

It became a major national concern in the early part of the twentieth century; the introduction of the internal combustion engine provided a demand that has largely sustained the industry to this day.

Early "local" finds like those in Pennsylvania and Ontario were quickly outpaced by demand, leading to "oil booms" in Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, and California.

[38] By 1910, significant oil fields had been discovered in the Dutch East Indies (1885, in Sumatra), Persia (1908, in Masjed Soleiman), Peru (1863, in Zorritos District), Venezuela (1914, in Maracaibo Basin), and Mexico, and were being developed at an industrial level.

[39] The availability of oil and access to it, became of "cardinal importance" in military power before[40] and after World War I, particularly for navies as they changed from coal, but also with the introduction of motor transport, tanks and airplanes.

[41] Such thinking would continue in later conflicts of the twentieth century, including World War II, during which oil facilities were a major strategic asset and were extensively bombed.

[42] In 1938, vast reserves of oil were discovered in the al-Ahsa region in the Eastern Part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia along the coast of the Arabian Gulf.

Although at the time the most common and popular predictions were quite dire, a period of increased production and reduced demand in the following years caused an oil glut in the 1980s.

Petroleum's worth as a portable, dense energy source powering the vast majority of vehicles and as the base of many industrial chemicals makes it one of the world's most important commodities.

[44] About 80% of the world's readily accessible reserves are located in the Middle East, with 62.5% coming from the Arab 5: Saudi Arabia (12.5%), UAE, Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait.