Who discovered oil in the world. When and where did oil production first begin?

It is no coincidence that today such a mineral as oil is called black gold or even "blood modern civilization". Almost everything is made from oil: from film to plastic goggles for swimming. We have collected 14 of the most interesting facts about oil and oil production:

1. 1. What does the word "oil" mean?

In Russian, the word oil came from Turkish (from the word oil), which comes from the Persian naft, and which in turn was borrowed from the Semitic languages. Akkadian (Assyrian) word nartn"oil" comes from a Semitic verbal root npt with the original meaning "spew, spew."

There are other versions of the meaning of the word oil. For example, according to some sources, the word oil comes from the Akkadian napatum, which means "flare, ignite," according to others - from the ancient Iranian naft, meaning "something wet, liquid."

But, for example, the Chinese, the first, by the way, who drilled an oil well back in 347 AD, called and still call oil - shi yo, which literally means "mountain oil".

English word petroleum, which the Americans and the British call crude oil, also, by the way, means "mountain oil" and comes from the Greek petra (mountain) and the Latin oleum (oil).

2. 2. Where did commercial oil production begin?

The world history of industrial oil production began in 1848 in Azerbaijan. The mention of oil production in the suburbs of Baku refers to V century AD. Oil is everywhere here. In some places in this area, you don’t even need to drill anything - the oil itself forms puddles on the surface.

3. 3. Where does " Eternal flame' coming out of sacred mountain Yanadarg?

Here, in the suburbs of Baku, the most famous of the volcanoes, Yanadarg, known as the Burning Mountain, is located. Natural gas comes out of its bowels, which has been burning for several centuries, but the fire does not go beyond the mountain.There is always a strong smell of gas in the air.Natural gas rises through cracks in the rock and comes to the surface unaided.

4. 4. How is an oil field formed?

Oil seeps into layers of loose sandstone or fractured limestone, and may even move to soak into layers like water soaks into a sponge. During geological processes horizontal layers are curved, and oil begins to migrate more actively along them. Due to the fact that at depth the pressure is greater than at the surface, oil does not flow down, but, on the contrary, tends to rise. Once in such a fold, oil cannot leave it. Geologists call such a structure a "hydrocarbon trap", in which a huge amount of oil accumulates, forming a deposit. The presence of a trap is the first condition for the formation of a deposit.

5. 5. Is it true that Edwin Drake, who first proposed drilling the earth for oil, was considered crazy?

Outside of Russia, the first oil well was drilled in 1859 in the United States by Colonel Edwin Drake in the vicinity of Titusville, Pennsylvania, the general representative of the Seneca Oil Company. Due to attempts to use drilling to find and extract oil locals thought Drake was crazy. In addition, Drake, by his own account, invented the casing pipe, "without which no one could drill in the lowlands where the earth is flooded."

6. 6. When did oil production begin in Russia?

In Russia, until the middle of the 19th century, oil was extracted from Absheron Peninsula from wells, and already on July 14, 1848, in the place of Bibi-Heybat, the world's first oil well was drilled using a percussive method using wooden rods.

In 1900, 631.1 million poods of oil were produced in Russia, which accounted for 51.6% of the total world oil production.At that time, oil production was carried out in 10 countries: Russia, the USA, the Dutch East Indies, Romania, Austria-Hungary, India, Japan, Canada, Germany, Peru. At the same time, the main oil-producing countries were Russia and the United States, which together accounted for more than 90% of all world oil production.

The peak of oil production in Russia occurred in 1901, when 706.3 million poods of oil were produced (50.6% of world production). After that, due to the economic crisis and falling demand, oil production in Russia began to decline. The price of oil, which in 1900 amounted to 16 kopecks. per pood, in 1901, due to an overabundance of supply, it fell by 2 times to 8 kopecks. for a pud. In 1902, the price was 7 kopecks. per pood, after which there was a tendency to restore demand and volumes of oil production. This trend was interrupted by the revolution of 1905, which was accompanied by arson and the general destruction of the Baku oil fields.

7. 7. How is oil exploration carried out?

The lines along which oil exploration is carried out are called "profiles". The data obtained from each profile makes it possible to build a section of rocks, on which all underground structures will be clearly visible. If geophysicists find a "hydrocarbon trap", then most likely there will be a field.

Most effective method oil exploration - seismic exploration. The principle of this method is similar to medical ultrasound. In doctors, the device generates ultrasonic waves that are reflected from the tissues internal organs. A sensitive microphone picks up these reflections, and the computer produces a picture. Geologists have almost the same thing: in order to see the bowels, you must first create an impulse that will be reflected from the underground layers. At the surface, it must be captured and then measured to obtain an image of the earth's thickness.

8. 8. What is a seismic vibrator and how does it work?

Seismovibrator- This is a truck that is designed to excite longitudinal seismic vibrations. Their task is to create a powerful impulse that will be reflected from underground layers, and will be recorded by a seismic receiver. Previously, explosives were used for this, but seismic vibrators are more convenient, safer and do not harm the environment.

A group of seismic vibrators must move exactly along the profile on which the geophones are installed. After every 100 m, the seismic vibrators stop to give out a powerful vibration impulse. The support platform is lowered, lifting the 20-ton machine. At this time, a signal from a seismic station arrives in the driver's cab.

The car starts to "bounce" 80 times per second. It is not visible to the eye, but it is reflected on the ground. Each pulse is equivalent to 40 grams of TNT. It turns out that in 4 seconds a total impulse with a power of almost 12 kg of TNT goes into the ground! Seismic sensors begin to record vibrations. Inside each seismic sensor there is a magnet, which is surrounded by a coil with a thin wire, freely suspended on a spring. The incoming wave shakes the body of the receiver along with the magnet, and the coil begins to move. The magnetic field induces an alternating voltage in it, repeating the shape of the oscillations. The electrical signal from the receiver is transmitted to the seismic station.

9. 9. Is it true that oil can be used to embalm the dead?

IN Ancient Egypt oil was used to embalm the dead. In those days, petroleum bitumen was used to embalm mummies and to cover boats.

10. Is it true that oil can be used as medicine?

In 1874, the principle of producing salicylic acid from phenol was discovered, and since then, acetylsalicylic acid, or simply "aspirin", has become one of the most popular in the world. medicines. Everyone knows that aspirin has antipyretic, anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. In addition, the antiseptic phenyl salicylate, used to treat colitis and other gastrointestinal diseases, and para-aminosalicylic acid, used in anti-tuberculosis drugs, are produced from salicylic acid.

Various oil derivatives are used in preparations to help people get rid of allergies, headaches, nervous stress, or infectious diseases. Esters and alcohols are often used in the production of antibiotics.

11. What legend tells about the discovery of the healing properties of Naftalan oil?

An interesting legend about how they were discovered healing properties naftalan oil. Many centuries ago, a trade caravan passed by the place where the city of Naftalan is located today. There, travelers saw numerous lakes with muddy water. They drove their camels away from suspicious reservoirs, but one, the weakest and sickest, was allowed to get drunk and stay to die so that he would no longer suffer. On the way back, the caravaners met an abandoned companion - the camel was completely healthy. He was helped by an oily liquid, which was under the turbidity of the water. People smeared their wounds with it and were healed.

12. Is it true that oil can save humanity from starvation?

Oil can save humanity not only from disease, but also from hunger. Processing only 2% of the volume of oil produced annually makes it possible to produce up to 25 million tons of protein. This is enough to feed 2 billion people for a year. This protein is used in the production of a wide variety of products, and replaces animal protein, which is sorely lacking to meet the needs of the ever-growing population of our planet.

12. 13. Why are Saudi sheikhs so rich?

Saudi Aramco is a national company that produces oil in Saudi Arabia and wholly owned by the state. This company is the world's largest oil company in terms of oil production.

Do you know how much it costs Saudi Aramco to produce one barrel of oil?

Forbes magazine knows this. Here is what he writes (in my rather loose translation):

Saudi Aramco is the most profitable company on the planet. It does not fully disclose its financial figures, but a rough approximation of its net income is $200 billion a year with annual income in excess of $350 billion. Last year, Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi told reporters that on average, the A barrel of oil in Saudi Arabia is $2. This barrel of oil is sold for $130. If you pass the same barrel of oil through an integrated petrochemical plant, it will easily bring in $500 in revenue.

For comparison: in the Russian oil company Rosneft, the cost of producing one barrel of oil averages $14.57. And taking into account the costs of exploration, drilling of wells and modernization of the refinery, it turns out to be $21 per barrel.

14. Why does an increase in oil prices lead to a change in the dollar and an increase in prices for all goods?

What if the price of oil goes up? Even if it grows many times, and after it the price of gasoline, it would seem, what ordinary person before this thing? You can walk to work or ride a bike.

And here's the thing: once upon a time there was a dollar. For him they gave 35 rubles. Thus, at an oil price of $100 per barrel, the country's budget received conditionally 3,500 rubles. However, then the price of oil began to fall, and with an oil price of $50 per barrel, the country's budget began to receive conditionally 1,750 rubles at a constant ruble exchange rate. Thus, there is a shortage of money in the budget and a deficit arises, and the ruble exchange rate weakens to compensate for the shortfall in the budget. As a result, in order to get the same 3,500 rubles from 1 barrel of oil at a price of $50 per barrel, the exchange rate should be about 70 rubles per dollar. http://mirnefti.ru/index.php?id=21

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The editors of CNews are not responsible for its content.

3 years ago

Oil- one of the representatives of the class of liquid minerals (in addition to it, it also includes artesian water). It got its name from the Persian "oil". Together with ozocerite and natural gas, it forms a group of minerals called petrolites.

WHAT IS OIL FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY

It is a greasy, oily substance, the color and density of which varies depending on the place of extraction. It can be bright green or cherry red, yellow, brown, black, and in rare cases, colorless. The fluidity of oil also varies greatly: one will be like water, the other will be viscous. But what unites such different physical properties substances is their chemical composition, which is always a complex mixture of hydrocarbons. Impurities are responsible for other properties - sulfur, nitrogen and other compounds, of which the smell depends mainly on the presence of aromatic hydrocarbons and sulfur compounds.

The name of the main component of oil - "hydrocarbons" exhaustively speaks of its composition. These are substances consisting of carbon and hydrogen atoms, whose general formula is written as CxHy. The simplest representative of this series is methane CH4 present in any oil.

The elemental composition of the average oil can be represented as a percentage:

• 84% carbon
• 14% hydrogen
• 1-3% sulfur
• <1 % кислорода
• <1 % металлов
• <1 % солей

FEATURES OF OIL AND GAS OCCUPATION

Oil and gas are usually fellow travelers, that is, they are found together, but this happens only at a depth of 1 to 6 kilometers. Most of the fields are located in this range, and the combinations of oil and gas are different. If the depth is less than a kilometer, then only oil is found there, and more than 6 kilometers - only gas.

The reservoir where oil is found is called a reservoir. These are usually porous rocks, which can be likened to a hard sponge that collects and retains oil, gas, and other mobile fluids (for example, water). Another obligatory condition for oil accumulation is the presence of a cover layer, which prevents further movement of the fluid, due to which it is trapped. Geologists are looking for such traps, which are then called deposits, but this is not quite the right name. Because oil or gas originated much lower, in layers under high pressure. They get into the upper layers due to the fact that, being light fluids, they tend upwards. They are literally squeezed to the surface of the earth.

WHERE AND WHEN DID OIL ORIGINATE

To understand the mechanism of oil formation, you need to mentally go back millions of years. According to the biogenic theory (it is also the theory of organic origin), starting from the Carboniferous period (350 million years BC) and up to the middle of the Paleogene (50 million years BC), numerous areas of shallow water became places of accumulation of the remains of organic life - dying microorganisms and algae fell to the bottom, forming bottom layers of organic matter. Very slowly, these layers were covered by other, inorganic - sediments of sand, for example, and fell lower and lower. The pressure increased, the covering layers hardened, there was no access of oxygen to the organic matter. In the darkness, under the influence of pressure and temperature, the remains were transformed into simple hydrocarbons, some of which became gaseous, some - liquid and solid.

As soon as the fluids were given the opportunity to escape from the parent formation, they rushed up until they were trapped. True, the rise also took a long time. In traps, fluids are usually distributed as follows: gas on top, then oil, and at the very bottom - water. This is due to the density of each of them. If no impermeable layer was encountered on the way of the fluids, they ended up on the surface, where they were destroyed and dispersed. Natural seeps of oil to the surface are usually lakes of thick malta and semi-liquid asphalt, or it impregnates the sand, forming the so-called tar sands.

THE HUMAN HISTORY OF OIL

The release of oil to the surface could not but attract the attention of an ancient person. There is practically no information about the earliest stages of acquaintance, but during the period of a well-developed material culture, oil was used in construction - this is evidenced by data from Iraq, where evidence was found of using oil to protect houses from moisture. In Egypt, the flammability of oil was discovered, and it was used for lighting. In addition, it has found use in mummification and as a sealant for boats.

Being rare, oil became a valuable commodity already in antiquity: the Babylonians traded it in the Middle East. It is assumed that it was this trade that gave rise to many cities and villages. It is also possible that oil was used to create one of the famous "Wonders of the World" - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. There it came in handy as a sealant that did not allow water to pass through.

The Chinese were the first to be dissatisfied with the springs coming to the surface. It was they who invented well drilling, using hollow bamboo trunks with a metal “drill” at the end. At first they looked for salty springs to extract salt, but then they found oil and gas. With the help of the latter, they evaporated the salt - setting it on fire. There is no data on the use of oil in China at that time.

Another ancient use of oil was the treatment of skin diseases. A similar practice among the inhabitants of the Absheron Peninsula is mentioned in the notes of Marco Polo.

For the first time, oil in Rus' was mentioned only in the 15th century. Historians have found references to the collection of crude oil on the Ukhta River, where it formed a film on the surface of the water. There it was collected and made from it a medicine or a source of light - usually it was an impregnation for torches.

A new use for oil was only found in the 19th century, when the kerosene lamp was invented. It was developed by the Polish chemist Ignatius Lukasiewicz. It is possible that he was also the inventor of a method for extracting kerosene from oil. A few years earlier, Canadian Abraham Gesner had come up with a way to get kerosene from coal, but getting it from oil turned out to be more profitable.

Kerosene was actively used for lighting, so the demand for it grew constantly. Therefore, it was necessary to solve the problem of its extraction. The beginning of the oil industry was laid in 1847 in Baku, where the first well was drilled to produce oil. Soon there were so many wells that Baku was nicknamed the Black City.

But those wells were still drilled by hand. The very first well, drilled by a steam engine that set the drilling machine in motion, appeared in Russia in 1864 in the Kuban region. Two years later, mechanical drilling of another well was completed at the Kudakinsky field.

In the world, the beginning of industrial oil production was laid in 1859 by Edwin Drake, who on August 27 of this year drilled the first oil well in the United States - it had a depth of 21.2 meters and was located in the town of Titusville in Pennsylvania, where, even before, when drilling artesian wells, often found oil.

Oil drilling dramatically reduced the cost of oil production and led to the fact that soon this product became the most important for modern civilization. At the same time, this was the beginning of the development of the oil industry.

OIL APPLICATIONS

Currently, we no longer use oil in its pure form. However, there are many products of its processing, without which our world is unthinkable. After the first distillation, five types of fuel are obtained:

• aviation and motor gasoline
• kerosene
• rocket fuel
• diesel fuel
• fuel oil

The fuel oil fraction is the source of another series of further distillation products:

• bitumen
• paraffin
• oils
• boiler fuel

The further fate of bitumen is its combination with gravel and sand to produce asphalt. Another oil product that is also used for road works is tar, which is a concentrate of oil residues after its distillation. The other residue, petroleum coke, is used in the manufacture of ferroalloys and electrodes.

The chemical industry uses the simplest hydrocarbons as feedstock for reactions that change the formula of compounds. The result is plastics, rubber, fabrics, fertilizers, dyes, polyethylene and polypropylene, as well as many household chemicals.

Probably, few of us think about where, when and how they began to extract oil, as a result of which mankind enjoys the benefits of civilization.

If you look into history, then oil production in Russia dates back to the 16th century and originates on the Ukhta River. Initially, it was used as a medicinal lubricant and was collected from the surface of the river water.

Over time, when they began to understand the purpose and use of this product, in places where it came out of the water, rounded wells were built, which were fastened and burst with boards and hoops. But since the demand for oil has steadily grown, this method was quite primitive and did not allow oil to be extracted from great depths. This was complicated by the fact that when people descended to a great depth to the oil reservoir, combustible gas spread. He, in turn, forced out all the air from the well, as a result of which people died. But progress does not stand still and people
began to master the "new", at that time, technologies. When wells were dug, masters were lowered on ropes to a certain depth, who accompanied their entire descent by singing songs. The rest of the workers listened to his voice at the top of these wells, and as soon as the voice subsided, he was immediately taken upstairs. This meant poisoning a person with combustible gas. In the fresh air, he "came to his senses" and everything continued on.

However, not everything is so rosy, there are cases when a person still died without regaining consciousness. In order to exclude as much as possible cases of loss of people, wells were dug in steps, which to some extent excluded possible collapses, explosions and poisoning of people. But this method required a very large labor input. So some wells had to be dug to a depth of 60 meters.

But such wells cannot be called serious facilities for extracting oil from great depths. Therefore, in the period of the 19th century, methods of extracting oil from boreholes similar to those wells used to drill water began to be used. This method made it possible to extract not only oil, but also gas from great depths.

However, due to limited knowledge, gas emissions were attributed to evil spirits, and, accordingly, the tsarist government banned this type of activity.

As a result, oil drilling in the United States has received a more powerful development. And only after the abolition of the pay-off system, active drilling began in Russia in search of oil. As a result, large deposits were discovered: the Caspian region and the North Caucasus, the Volga-Ural region, Western Siberia. This region is Russia's main "oil trump card": about 60% of the annual oil production in our country is produced in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug.

Details Historical Notes

ABOUT the main stages in the formation of the oil industry in Russia from the oil fields on the Ukhta River to the foundation of giant state corporations.

First mention of discovery oil in Russia they belong to the 16th-17th centuries. It is known that the Irkutsk written head Leonty Kislyansky in 1684 discovered oil in the area of ​​the Irkutsk prison. The locals collected oil from the surface of the water and used it as a lubricant. Subsequently, new oil discoveries were reported in the same area, in particular, the Vedomosti newspaper published such an event on January 2, 1703.

But the first serious by those standards oil production from the bottom of Ukhta began only in 1745 year, which was led by a native of Arkhangelsk, Fedor Savelyevich Pryadunov. He also initiated refining history, creating next to the field chronologically the first primitive oil refinery in history. However, a few years later Pryadunov was imprisoned for non-payment of debts, where he died in 1753. The enterprise meanwhile fell into disrepair and collapsed.

In the 19th century, the Caucasus became the main region of oil production in Russia. IN 1846 (7) year on the Absheron Peninsula, which at that time belonged to the Russian Empire, in the village of Bibi-Heybat (near Baku), the world's first oil exploration well was drilled. The first production well in Russia was drilled in the Kuban, in the village of Kievskoye, in the valley of the Kudako River in 1864.

IN 1853 In the same year, the kerosene lamp was invented, in connection with which the demand for oil and petroleum products increased many times over. The first oil refinery, producing mainly kerosene, was built in Baku in 1863 year engineer David Melikov. A few years later, he also founded an oil refinery in Grozny.

An important role in the development of the oil industry in the Caucasus was played by the Nobel brothers, who founded 1879 year" Nobel Brothers Oil Production Association"The enterprise carried out oil production and oil refining in Baku, created a transport and marketing network that included oil pipelines, tankers, tank cars and tank farms with berths and railway lines.

	Shares of the "Partnership of Oil Production of the Nobel Brothers"

Foreign capital began to pour into the oil industry of Russia at the end of the 19th century. In particular, in 1886 year the Rothschilds bought back the shares " Batumi Oil Industry and Trade Society", formed by the industrialists Bung and Palashkovsky, who, however, were forced to apply for financial assistance, and renamed the company into the" Caspian-Black Sea Oil Industrial Society ".

By the beginning of the 20th century, Russia's share in world oil production was 30%. After the 1917 revolution oil fields began to be nationalized, in connection with which production volumes were significantly reduced. However, foreign capital did not leave Russia - the Rothschilds sold their assets to companies such as Standard Oil and Vacuum. As a result of the cooperation of these companies with the Soviet government, the level of exports returned to its previous values ​​by 1923.

Between the 1917 revolution and World War II, Russia's main oil production area was the North Caucasus and the Caspian region. In particular, gaining control over these territories was one of the main tasks of Hitler's Germany during the Great Patriotic War.

	Oil production in Baku, 1941.

After the war, in addition to oil production in the Caspian, it was decided to start developing the search and development of deposits in the Volga-Ural region. The relative ease in the development of deposits, as well as their location in close proximity to the main transport arteries, contributed to the development of the region. So already in the 50s, the Volga-Ural deposits accounted for about 45% of all oil produced in Russia.

IN 1960s In 1999, the USSR took the second place in the world in terms of the volume of hydrocarbons produced. This was one of the factors behind the fall in prices for Middle Eastern oil and a prerequisite for the creation OPEC .

In the early 60s, a promising question was raised, namely, how to maintain the level of oil production during the passage of the peak and the depletion of the reserves of the Volga-Ural region. As a result, active development of deposits in Western Siberia began. In a short time, the West Siberian basin became the largest oil-producing region in the USSR. In 1965, the unique Samotlor field was discovered here, with 14 billion barrels of oil available. In 1975, 9.9 million barrels per day were produced in Western Siberia. The Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, located in Western Siberia, is still the main oil-producing region - 60% of all oil produced in Russia.

In the 1980s, problems emerged in the oil industry of the USSR. The desire to get the maximum value of production volumes resulted in intensive drilling, while investment in the exploration of new deposits was minimized. This led to the passage of the Soviet Union in 1988, the peak oil production of 11.4 million barrels per day (569 million tons per year).

	Dynamics of oil production in Russia and the USSR, million tons/year.

After that, a gradual regression of the industry began, which was significantly aggravated by the collapse of the USSR. Both drilling volumes and domestic demand and export opportunities were declining.

The decline in production stopped only in 1997 due to the demonopolization and privatization of the industry. As a result, several large vertically integrated oil companies have been created, covering the full cycle of oil production - from exploration to the sale of petroleum products.

One of the high-profile events of the early 2000s was the "YUKOS case", when the country's leadership took measures to bankrupt this company and sell off its assets, most of which went to the state NK "ROSNEFT" .

In general, since the beginning of the 2000s, Russia has seen a steady rise in the oil industry, and production volumes have been increasing year by year.

In 2015, Russia produced 534.1 million tons of oil and gas condensate, which corresponds to approximately 10.726 million barrels per day.

Oil has been known to man since ancient times. People have long paid attention to the black liquid oozing from the ground. There is evidence that as early as 6,500 years ago, people living in what is now Iraq added oil to building and cementing materials when building houses in order to protect their homes from moisture penetration. The ancient Egyptians collected oil from the surface of the water and used it in construction and for lighting. Oil was also used to seal boats and as an ingredient in a mummifying agent.

Not everywhere oil was collected only from the surface. In China, more than 2000 years ago, small wells were drilled using metal-tipped bamboo trunks. Initially, the wells were intended for the extraction of salt water, from which salt was extracted. But when drilling to a greater depth, oil and gas were produced from wells.

Although, as we can see, oil has been known since ancient times, it has found rather limited use. The modern history of oil begins in 1853, when the Polish chemist Ignatius Lukasiewicz invented a safe and easy-to-use kerosene lamp. According to some sources, he also discovered a way to extract kerosene from oil on an industrial scale and founded an oil refinery in the vicinity of the Polish city of Ulaszowice in 1856.

Back in 1846, Canadian chemist Abraham Gesner figured out how to get kerosene from coal. But oil made it possible to obtain cheaper kerosene and in much larger quantities. The growing demand for kerosene, used for lighting, created a demand for the source material. This was the beginning of the oil industry.

According to some sources, the world's first oil well was drilled in 1847 near the city of Baku on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Shortly thereafter, so many oil wells were drilled in Baku, then part of the Russian Empire, that it began to be called the Black City.

Nevertheless, the year 1864 is considered to be the birth of the Russian oil industry. In the autumn of 1864, in the Kuban region, a transition was made from the manual method of drilling oil wells to a mechanical percussion rod using a steam engine as a drive for the drilling machine. The transition to this method of drilling oil wells confirmed its high efficiency on February 3, 1866, when the drilling of well 1 at the Kudakinsky field was completed and a fountain of oil gushed out of it. It was the first fountain of oil in Russia and the Caucasus.

According to most sources, August 27, 1859 is considered to be the date of the beginning of industrial world oil production. This is the day when the first oil well in the United States, drilled by "Colonel" Edwin Drake, received an influx of oil with a fixed flow rate. This 21.2-meter-deep well was drilled by Drake in Titusville, Pennsylvania, where water wells often show oil.