Introduction about oil and gas

The modern oil and gas industry was born in the late 19th century. In the early 1800's, merchants built damns that allowed oil to float to the waters' surface in an area within Western Pennsylvania called Oil Creek. A technique using blankets was employed placing blankets in the water, letting them soak with oil, and the oil was then retrieved by wringing out the blankets. The oil was sold for two dollars per gallon.

The invention of the kerosene lamp in the mid 1850's led to the establishment of the first U.S. oil company, the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company. However, the first major oil company was the Standard Oil Company founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1870. Standard Oil built its first oil refinery in Pennsylvania, then later expanded its extensive operations nationwide. After a decade of fierce competition, Standard Oil became the industry's most dominant company controlling 80 percent of the distribution of all principal oil products, in particular kerosene.

In 1909 as a result of antitrust laws, federal courts ordered the break up of the Standard Oil Company dividing it up into 34 separate companies. Standard Oil dominated the first two decades of the oil and gas industry, and the U.S. accounted for more than half of the world's production until around 1950. As the industry became more global in nature, other world markets in Europe, Russia and Asia, began to play a much greater role. New industry giants emerged such as, Shell, Royal Dutch, and Anglo-Persian which later became British Petroleum.