Oil history

Although we can trace the beginnings of oil itself to several million years ago, the oil industry is a comparatively recent development. Petroleum literally means “rock oil”. It is the second most abundant liquid on Earth. Oil and also provide two-thirds of the world’s primary energy supplies.

Oil and gas are also non-renewable resources and our use of them has increased so much that we have worries about how long they will last. However, improved technology in the oil and gas industry now means that each we are finding more oil in the world than we are using.

First coal and now petroleum (which includes oil and gas) have played an essential role in changing our society from an agricultural to an industrial one. It is almost impossible to find any synthetic item where petroleum has not had any part in the process of its manufacture.

There is evidence that humans have used petroleum products throughout history. Oil that had seeped to the surface would mostly evaporate and leave behind bitumen - the tarry component of the mixture of hydrocarbons from which it is composed. This has been used for thousands of years as a waterproofing agent, for plumbing, boat building and brick bonding.

There is reference to bitumen being used as a coating for Moses` basked and Noah`s Ark being pitched inside and out with it. The American Indians collected oil for medicines. The American settles found its presence in the water supplies a contamination, but they learned to collect it to use as fuel in their lamps.

Petroleum became a valuable commodity in the nineteenth century. The whaling industry was failing to provide enough whale oil to light the lamps of the world and a new source was needed. The first oil well drilled in August 1859 by Edwin Drake in Pennsylvania, starting a new era in our history.

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Дата добавления: 2015-07-11