Petroleum Seep - More Modern Associations

More Modern Associations

The modern history of petroleum exploitation, originally from seeps began in the 19th century with the refining of kerosene from crude oil as early as 1823, and the process of refining kerosene from coal by Nova Scotian Abraham Pineo Gesner in 1846; but it was only after Ignacy Łukasiewicz had improved Gesner's method to develop a means of refining kerosene from the more readily available "rock oil" ("petr-oleum") seeps, in 1852, that the first rock oil mine was built near Krosno in central European Galicia (Poland/Ukraine) in 1853. In 1854, Benjamin Silliman, a science professor at Yale University, was the first American to fractionate petroleum by distillation. These discoveries rapidly spread around the world.

The world's first commercial oil well was drilled in Poland in 1853, and the second in nearby Romania in 1857. At around the same time the world's first, but small, oil refineries were opened at Jasło, in Poland, with a larger one being opened at Ploiești, in Romania, shortly after. Romania is the first country in the world to have its crude oil output officially recorded in international statistics, namely 275 tonnes. By the end of the 19th century the Russian Empire, particularly in Azerbaijan, had taken the lead in production.

The first oil "well" in North America was in Oil Springs, Ontario, Canada in 1858, dug by James Miller Williams. The US petroleum industry began with Edwin Drake's drilling of a 69-foot (21 m) oil well in 1859, on Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania, both named for their petroleum seeps.

Other sources of oil, initially associated with petroleum seeps were discovered in Peru (1863), in Zorritos District, in the Dutch East Indies (1885), on Sumatra, in Persia (1908), at Masjed Soleiman, as well as in Venezuela, Mexico, and the province of Alberta, Canada.

By 1910, these too were being developed at an industrial level. Initially these petroleum sources and products were for use in fueling lamp, but with the development of the internal combustion engine, their supply could not meet the increased demand; many of these early traditional sources and "local finds" were soon outpaced by technology and demand.