Early History of Oil

  • 3500s B.C. Oil seepage from the flinty rocks, reported in the old Testament: Deuteronomy 32:13 and 33:24.
  • 3200s Asphalt was used as insulation material in ship-building.
  • 2000s Asphalt was used in the construction of walls and towers of Babylon.
  • 300 Asphalt was used in mummifying processes.
  • 100 B.C. Oil floating on the Shoreline of Sicily (Year 1500's painting by Giovanni Stradano).
  • 347 A.D. Oil Wells are drilled in China up to 800ft deep using bits attached to bamboo poles.
  • 700s Oil was known as "Burning Water" in Japan.
  • 1264 Mining of seep oil in medieval witnessed by Marco Polo on his travel to Baku.
  • 1500s Seep oil collected in the Carpathian Mountains of Poland is used to light street lamps.
  • 1594 Oil wells are hand dug at Baku, Persia up to 115ft deep.
  • 1595 First Petroleum in the Americas occurs in Sir Walter Raleigh's account of the Trinidad Pitch Lake.
  • 1735 Oil sands are mined and the oil extracted at Pechelbronn field in Alsace, France.
  • 1802 A 58ft well is drilled using spring pole in Kanawha Valley in West Virgina to produce brine.
  • 1815 Oil is produced in USA as an undesirable by-product from brine wells in Pennsylvania.
  • 1848 First modern oil well is drilled on Aspheron, North East of Baku, by Russian Engineer (Semyenov).
  • 1849 Distillation of Kerosene from Oil by Canadian Geologist to use as an illuminant, instead of whale oil.
  • 1850 Oil from hand-dug pits in California is distilled to produce lamp oil by General Andreas Pico.
  • 1854 First oil wells in Europe are drilled to 100 to 150ft deep in Poland.
  • 1857 Michael Dietz invents a Kerosene lamps that forced whale oil out of the market.
  • 1858 First oil well in North America is drilled in Ontrio, Canada.
  • 1859 First oil well in United States is drilled 69ft deep at Titusville, Pennsylvania by Colonel Drake.
  • 1861 First oil well in California is drilled manually in Humboldt County.
  • 1866 Oil is collected from tunnels dug at Sulphur Mountain in Ventura County.
  • 1866 First steam-powered rig in California drills an oil well at Ojai, not far from the Sulphur Mountain seeps.
  • 1875 First commercial oil field in California is discovered at Pico Canyon in Los Angeles County.
  • 1878 Electric light bulb invented by Thomas Edison eliminated the use of Kerosene and oil industry is in recession.
  • 1877 Russian tanker sailed across the Caspian Sea at Baku.
  • 1885 Oil burners on steam engines in California oil fields and Steam Locomotives created new Crude Oil market.
  • 1886 Gasoline-powered automobiles introduced in Europe by Karl Benz and Wilhem Daimler.
  • 1900 Bitumen was discovered in Nigeria.
  • 1908 A London based millionaire hired a Geologist (George Reynolds) who discovered oil in Iran.
  • 1927 Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) discovered oil in Iraq.
  • 1938 Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia.
  • 1943 Oil was discovered in Russia.
  • 1956 The U.S. Oil producer, James W. Menhall, discovered Oil in Syria.
  • 1959 Oil was discovered in Libya.