Oil Timeline

  • 347

    China

    Oil wells are drilled in China up to 800 feet deep using bits attached to bamboo poles.
  • Jan 27, 1264

    Marco Polo

    Mining of seep oil in medieval Persia witnessed by Marco Polo on his travels through Baku.
  • Jan 27, 1500

    Street Lamps

    Seep oil collected in the Carpathian Mountains of Poland is used to light street lamps.
  • Hand Digging

    Oil wells are hand dug at Baku, Persia up to 35 meters (115 feet) deep.
  • Oil Sands

    OIl sands are mined and the oil extraceted at Pechelbronn field in Alsace, France
  • The Brothers

    A 58-ft well it dilled using a spring pole in the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia by the brothers David and Joseph Rufner to produce brine. The well takes 18 months to dril.
  • Pennsyvania

    Oil is produced in United States as an undesirable by-product from brinee wells in Pennsylvania
  • Europe

    First oil wells in Europe are drilled 30- to 5- metres deep in Bóbrka, Poland by Ignacy Lukasiewicz
  • Modern Oil well

    First modern oil well is drilled in Asia on te Aspheron Peninsula north-east of Baku, by Russian engineer F.N. Semyenov.
  • Kerosene

    Distillation of kerosene from oil by Canadian geologist Dr. Abraham Gesner. Kerosene eventually replaces wale oil as the illuminant of choice and creates a new market for crude oil.
  • General Andreas Pico

    Oil from hand-dug pits in Californai at Los Angeles is distelled to produce lamp oil by General Andres Pico
  • The Courthouse

    Natural Gas from a water well in Stockton,California is used to light the Stockton courthouse.
  • Michael Dietz

    Michael Dietz invents a kerosene lamp that forces whale oil lamps off the market
  • Canada

    First oil well in North America is drilled in Ontario, Canada.
  • Colonel Edwin Drake

    First oil well in United States is drilled 69 feet deep at Titusville, Pennsylvania by Colonel Edwin Drake