The History of Oil

When we think of oil, it is a modernistic view we have with images of automobiles filling their tanks at the gas station or rigs pumping up the dark rich fluid in places like Texas. In reality, the first mention of oil’s discovery goes back to the year 347 A.D. History states that it was in China that bits of attached bamboo poles were used to drill into the earth 800 feet in search of the product.

By the 1500s seep oil was collected in the Carpathian Mountains of Poland to light street lamps. Unfortunately, the seep oil was a dark liquid that stuck to everything. It also burned with a foul smell and gave off more smoke and soot than other lamp oils, which at that time was made from animal fat.

As for getting credit in digging the first commercial oil well, historians give that nomination to Colonel Edwin L. Drake. Drake’s well reached a depth of 22m or 72 feet. The well was located near the town of Titusville, Pennsylvania and began producing oil August 28, 1859. Because there weren’t automobiles in those days, the main market for his newfound product was medicine. Drake’s ‘Rock Oil’ sold for about $40 a barrel, close to what oil costs are even today.

Meanwhile in Wietze, Germany, claims were made that an oil well had been put in even earlier than Drake’s, a year earlier, 1858. Who was really first is still disputed, as the Persians were hand-digging wells in 1594 up to 115 feet deep.

Then came kerosene. Ignacy Luasiewicz, a Polish druggist began experimenting with seep oil in lamps as an alternative to whale oil. To make it burn cleaner, he tinkered with the process of distillation. Abraham Gesner later perfected this technique in 1853. But kerosene’s true notoriety came during an emergency surgery when Lukasiewicz was called to a local hospital to provide light from one of his lamps. The doctors were so impressed that the new product soon became very popular in Europe. Meanwhile in the United States, the need for the oil also created a new industrial boom. Kerosene was used for heating and lighting and was not surpassed by gasoline until the 1920s.

Today oil has many uses. Some would be surprised to discover all the uses oil is put to. Such items include common everyday items such as cosmetics, bubble gum, crayons, telephones, tape, sports equipment, shoes, car bodies, ink, heart valves and the list goes on. While 45.8 percent of refinery output is for gasoline followed by 10.7 percent for jet fuel, a barrel of oil serves many purposes. Yes kerosene is still one of them as well as lubricants, waxes, asphalt and liquefied gasses.