Oil

As a fuel, oil was originally used as kerosene for lighting, replacing animal, vegetable and coal oils. It also came to be used in furnaces. Its biggest use, however, came with the development of the automobile. Today almost all forms of locomotion -- cars, trucks, buses, trains, ships and airplanes -- are fueled by oil, diesel or gasoline. Fuel oil has also been burned to produce electricity, although that has always been mostly coal's job.

Oil has been known and used since the most ancient times and has been mentioned by most ancient historians since the time of Herodotus. It was used chiefly as a liniment or medicine, not as a fuel. Today, most human activities depend on oil. Without oil, most technology would cease to function, pulling us back to the past. Although alternatives are being sourced for, we cannot deny the importance of oil, and therefore, the history of such an important factor in our lives.

The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China in 347 CE or earlier. They had depths of up to about 800 feet (240 m) and were drilled using bits attached to bamboo poles. The oil was burned to evaporate brine and produce salt. By the 10th century, extensive bamboo pipelines connected oil wells with salt springs. The ancient records of China and Japan are said to contain many allusions to the use of natural gas for lighting and heating.

The first streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region. In the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan, to produce naphtha. These fields were described by the Arab geographer Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī in the 10th century, and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads. Petroleum was distilled by the Persian alchemist Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) in the 9th century, producing chemicals such as kerosene in the alembic (al-ambiq), and which was mainly used for kerosene lamps. Arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil in order to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the 12th century. It has also been present in Romania since the 13th century, being recorded as păcură.

The modern history of petroleum began in 19th century with refining kerosene from crude oil. While Russian Dubinin brothers purified kerosene on their factory (1823) directly from petroleum, in 1846 the process of refining kerosene from coal by Nova Scotian Abraham Pineo Gesner was discovered and only Ignacy Łukasiewicz improved Gesner's method to develop a means of refining kerosene from the more readily available "rock oil" seeps in 1852 and the first rock oil mine was built in Bóbrka, near Krosno in Galicia(Poland/Ukraine) in the following year. In 1854, Benjamin Silliman, a science professor at Yale University in New Haven, was the first American to fractionate petroleum by distillation. These discoveries rapidly spread around the world, and Meerzoeff built the first modern Russian refinery in the mature oil fields at Baku in 1861. At that time Baku produced about 90% of the world's oil.

The first commercial oil well in Romania was drilled in 1857, and the world's first oil refinery opened at Ploiesti, Romania being the first country in the world with a crude oil output officially recorded in international statistics, namely 275 tonnes.

Today, Saudi Arabia the world's most important oil producer where it accounts for nearly 13 percent of world output and 35 percent of total OPEC output in 1991. Unquestionably, Saudi Arabia's dominance of international crude oil markets is unchallenged. Although reluctant to play the role, Saudi Arabia has become the "swing producer," balancing international oil demand and supply. Therefore, within limits, Saudi oil production policies can have a profound impact on international prices. Since the early 1970s, the kingdom has occasionally used this dominance to influence oil prices, usually to further its objectives of sustaining long-term oil consumption and ensuring economic stability in the industrialized world.