When was petroleum oil discovered

Increasing sales of gasoline first for automobiles and then for airplanes in the early s came as oil discoveries across the United States mounted.

The oil industry had a vast new market for what had been for many years a useless by-product of the distilling process. As soon as the internal combustion engines created demand, refiners sought better methods to produce and improve gasolines. Before its entry into World War I , the United States contributed oil to the Allies, and in the oil companies cooperated with the Fuel Administration.

Although the U. Judging from government surveys, many producers believed that a major oil shortage would soon occur. These firms invested in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South America and searched for oil everywhere while they continued to export quantities of oil from the United States. Joiner became convinced that some flatlands in an East Texas basinlike structure contained oil.

He obtained a lease near Tyler, Texas, and on October 5, , after having drilled two dry holes, struck perhaps the largest oil pool ever found in America. It lay beneath , acres and contained 5 billion barrels. In a sense the Joiner strike came at an inopportune time; it was the onset of the Great Depression. The price of oil plummeted to ten cents a barrel in , creating chaos in the industry. But some New Deal measures restored a modicum of prosperity, and then World War II stimulated the oil business enormously.

The various oil strikes focused attention on a legal situation unique to the United States. This right of capture continued for years despite the efforts of such industry giants as conservation-minded Henry L. Doherty of Cities Service Oil Company, who sought to institute oil field unitization. The right of capture ensured early exhaustion of oil fields and tragic waste of a valuable energy source. Wallace E. Pratt, a geologist and longtime Jersey Standard leader, has estimated that by releasing the natural gas that often underlies petroleum pools and by using poor production techniques, oil producers have wasted at least 75 percent of the oil and natural gas found to date in the United States.

World War II made the oil industry a key American resource. Oil company research and executive leadership played major roles in the conflict. Research increased the number of products made from petroleum and natural gas, including the explosive tnt and artificial rubber. The Jersey-Dupont jointly owned product, tetraethyl lead, upgraded gasoline to improve airplane speed. Oil tankers supplied gasoline for the Allies at great risk from submarine attacks.

The government rationed gasoline and controlled prices during the war. In the last analysis the war ended the delusion that American supplies of crude were unlimited, so that the industry and the securing of oil became a top priority for both foreign and domestic policy. When the war ended, the United States faced the problem of stabilizing the peace.

Over the next forty-five years numerous major crises occurred, in many of which oil played a key role. Europe underwent a coal shortage, the first energy crisis, immediately after the war. The Marshall Plan , created to solve that and other problems, was hampered by the first Iranian crisis of The United States sought to balance support for the new state of Israel against the pressures of the oil producers, mostly Arab, united in as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries opec.

This proved increasingly difficult as the United States became steadily more dependent on imported oil. In the United States the standard of living based on cheap oil continuously rose and the public, accustomed to this way of life, resisted all conservation measures.

Oil should be considered the keystone of the standard of living in the United States and to a large degree its rank as a world power. Part of the energy problem after resulted from the depletion of domestic oil reserves during World War II—around 6 billion barrels. In the Vietnam struggle experts contend the United States supplied about 5 billion barrels of oil, although great quantities of that came from Middle Eastern properties owned by American companies.

Learn how your comment data is processed. Skip to content. Click here to browse the archive. Hundreds of thousands of wells have been drilled since. The first Mississippi oil well was drilled in after a Yazoo County survey by geologist Frederic Mellen, who had sought a suitable clay to mold cereal bowls for children. Union Producing Company completed ithe Woodson No. The well produced barrels of oil a day from a depth of 4, feet from a sandstone later named the Woodruff Sand.

While working on a Works Progress Administration project, Mellen had found indications of a salt dome structure. The first publicized report of oil in Nebraska had been in an newspaper. On February 12, , Shell Oil Company completed the first commercial well.

The Hogback No. A crowd watched as the explosion caused the Nellie Johnstone No. Drilling had begun in January, the same month Bartlesville was incorporated — and a decade before Oklahoma became a state. After decades of frustration over failed exploration attempts, the first Utah oil well was competed on September 18, , in the Uinta Basin.

John Wilkes Booth and Dr. Highlighted History Books from Amazon. Education and Teaching Books. Today, Royal Dutch Shell is the fifth largest company in the world and one of six oil and gas supermajors.

The Modern Era In the late 20 th century, changes in the oil market moved influence from generally oil-consuming areas such as the US and Europe to oil-producing countries. The s saw a significant glut in oil following the energy crisis. Petroleum production peaked in the s, which caused a sharp rise in oil price and a subsequent decrease in demand. Oil-producing countries suffered during this glut, with OPEC struggling to maintain high oil prices through decreasing oil production.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union can also be attributed in part to a loss of influence as an oil producer. The glut lasted six years, with oil prices gradually recovering in , but a similar surplus in oil started in and continues to have effects on global oil prices.