The modern petroleum industry was born in the United States more than 100 years ago. There is a small, barren mountain village called Titusville among the mountains of northwest Pennsylvania. There is a small stream behind the village. Because there is always a thin layer of black oil floating on the water, it is called "Oil Creek" by the locals. It was discovered that the black oil in Oil Creek seeped out from the cracks in the rocks on the mountain. The local indigenous people call this black oil "sacred oil" and believe that it can cure all diseases. Because black oil seeps out from the cracks in stones, people also call it petroleum. In 1853, a young man named George Beals passed by Oil Creek on his way to visit relatives and saw people using primitive methods to extract oil. Later, he saw oil samples in his teacher's office. Beers is a smart, keen, and good at capturing business opportunities. When he saw the oil sample, a thought immediately flashed in his mind: "This oil can burn, can it be used as lighting material?" At that time, The lighting method commonly used by people relied on lighting wicks soaked in animal fat or vegetable oil. The rich used sperm whale oil. Therefore, people had a strong demand for high-quality, low-price lighting materials. With the development of the industrial revolution, the demand for lubricating oil in large-scale machine production is increasing, and the lard traditionally used as lubricating oil is increasingly unable to meet the demand.
In the 1840s and 1850s, people began to refine the required oils from coal and other hydrocarbons. In 1854, Canadian Abel Hamann Geisner applied for a patent for manufacturing "wax oil" in the United States. In 1869, the daily output of the wax oil factory in New York, USA, could reach 5,000 gallons (1 gallon = 3.78541 liters). In this year, the value of wax oil produced by 34 companies in the United States amounted to US$5 million. At the same time, a New York businessman transformed a wax oil lamp with a glass cover used by the Viennese and spread it around the world. Under this situation, the demand for wax oil is increasing, and the source of oil is increasingly becoming a problem.
After Beers came up with the above idea, he immediately found someone to cooperate and formed an investment group. They invited Professor Silliman of Yale University to conduct chemical analysis of the oil in order to understand whether it could be used as a lighting material. On April 16, 1855, Professor Silliman submitted an epoch-making test report. He said in the report: "Research on the value of petroleum as a lighting material and its distillation products has achieved unexpected success. Petroleum can be heated to various degrees and separated by distillation into several parts, each part containing carbon and hydrogen. One of the ingredients is high-quality oil for lighting.”
But where can we get large amounts of oil? Oil seeps out drop by drop from the cracks in rocks, and how can a business be built on such primitive collection methods as skimming oil with a spoon or wringing out a blanket full of oil? The key to Beers' success lies in how to exploit the oil underground on a large scale. One day in 1856, Beers saw a huge advertisement on Broadway in New York. The advertisement showed several drilling rigs and included the text: "More than 1,500 years ago, the Chinese invented drilling to obtain water. . Now, the technology of drilling for water has been greatly improved, and this derrick is the most advanced drilling tool today..." A flash of inspiration flashed in Beers' mind - since we can drill wells to get water, why can't we drill wells to get oil? He told his investment partners about this idea. Although there was no precedent at the time, investors were convinced that the market needed oil and the opportunity was not to be missed and it was worth a try.
But who will put this arrogant idea into practice? Beales and his partners found Colonel Edwin Drake. This incident was purely accidental. Drake was originally a conductor on a railway passenger car. He left his job due to illness and lived in a hotel in New Haven. It happened that Townsend, one of Bills' partners, also stayed at this hotel on a business trip. After the two met, they often chatted together. Townsend told Drake about their oil business and their idea of ??drilling for oil, and that they now needed a perseverant person to implement this idea. Drake was very interested and decided to carry out this great operation himself. In order to be welcomed by the local villagers and facilitate his work, he gave himself the title of "Colonel".
In the spring of 1858, Colonel Drake, as the company's authorized agent, took $1,000 from the company and came to Titusville near Oil Creek to start drilling and producing oil. The drillers he hired thought he was out of his mind, and progress was slow. By August 1859, investors began to waver and were unwilling to continue investing. At the end of August, Townsend sent the final remittance to Drake and told Drake to end drilling once the bill was paid. On the afternoon of August 27, 1859 (Drake had not yet received Townsend's letter), when the drill bit reached a depth of 69 feet, it seemed to have hit a crack and slipped 6 feet. Since it was a weekend afternoon, drilling was not continued. The next day, when the drillers went to the construction site, they found a thick black liquid floating on the water. This is the oil they dream of! Drake’s perseverance finally paid off at just the right moment. "Colonel Drake has hit oil!" The news spread quickly, and people from all directions rushed to Titusville frantically to start drilling for oil. This was the beginning of large-scale commercial exploitation of oil in the United States, and is generally considered to be the beginning of large-scale commercial exploitation of oil worldwide. Someone commented: "The discovery of oil as a new resource in the United States in 1859 marked the beginning of a new era for mankind."
From this moment on, a vigorous history of petroleum began, and the modern petroleum industry was born.