History of the petroleum industry in the United States
Employment The history of the petroleum industry in the United States goes back to the early 19th century, although the indigenous peoples, like many ancient societies, have used petroleum seeps since prehistoric times; where found, these seeps signaled the growth of the industry from the earliest discoveries to the more recent.
Early European explorers noted seeps of oil and natural gas in western Pennsylvania and New York.
The Jesuit Relations of 1657 states: As one approaches nearer to the country of the Cats, one finds heavy and thick water, which ignites like brandy, and boils up in bubbles of flame when fire is applied to it.
In a number of locations in western Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, oil and natural gas came up the wells along with the brine.
The US natural gas industry started in 1821 at Fredonia, Chautauqua County, New York, when William Hart dug a well to a depth of 27 feet (8.2 m) into gas-bearing shale, then drilled a borehole 43 feet (13 m) further, and piped the natural gas to a nearby inn where it was burned for illumination.
The Drake partners were encouraged by Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864), a chemistry professor at Yale, who tested a sample of the oil, and assured them that it could be distilled into useful products such as kerosene for lamps.
Pratt's product later gave rise to the slogan, "The holy lamps of Tibet are primed with Astral Oil."
The Glenn discovery came when Gulf Coast production was declining rapidly, and the operators were eager for new areas to drill.
[11] In 1906, the Caddo-Pine Island Field in northern Caddo Parish, Louisiana was discovered, and a rush of leasing and drilling activity ensued.
This was one of the earliest commercial uses of natural gas, which was commonly viewed as an undesirable by-product of oil production and often "flared" or burnt off at the well site.
The wells in the Cañon City-Florence field, drilled near surface oil seeps, produced from fractures in the Pierre Shale.
Anthony Francis Lucas, an experienced mining engineer and salt driller, drilled a well to find oil at Spindletop Hill.
On the morning of January 10, 1901, the little hill south of Beaumont, Texas began to tremble and mud bubbled up over the rotary table.
A low rumbling sound came from underground, and then, with a force that shot 6 tons of 4-inch (100 mm) diameter pipe out over the top of the derrick, knocking off the crown block, the Lucas Gusher roared in and the Spindletop oil field was born.
Other salt dome mounds were quickly drilled, resulting in discoveries at Sour Lake (1902), Batson (1904) and Humble (1905).
Massive hydraulic fracturing, generally involving injecting over 150 short tons, or approximately 300,000 pounds (136 metric tonnes), of proppant, was first applied by Pan American Petroleum in Stephens County, Oklahoma, USA in 1968.
[24] By the 1970s, massive hydraulic fracturing was employed in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom in the North Sea.
[25] Hydraulic fracturing operations have grown exponentially since the mid-1990s, when technologic advances and increases in the price of natural gas made this technique economically viable.
[26] Oil rig technology advanced rapidly in the 20th century, with many innovations made by US companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico.
A number of major environmental incidents in the United States in the 20th Century are linked to the petroleum industry.
In 1910, the Lakeview Gusher in Kern County, California was a well blowout that created the largest accidental oil spill in history.
[40] The pipeline became well known when a planned fourth phase, Keystone XL, attracted opposition from environmentalists, becoming a symbol of the battle over climate change and fossil fuels.
