The Oil Industry

At work I have been going through a training program they made for new engineers coming into the company called the GOLD program.  A few of the lunch and learns we have gone to have been about the oil and gas industry as a whole, and how economics and world events all impact our business, and new projects.  I learned that all the guys who run my company read A LOT about the industry, and they have so much knowledge about it, it's stupid.  It made me feel like I should learn more about it myself, since this is the industry that I'm working in.  I'm hoping that I can start to understand how oil shapes the world economy and why it's one of the most important natural resources we have.

So, as part of my campaign to learn more about the Oil and Gas Industry, I bought a book called The Age of Oil by Leonardo Maugeri.  Because of my lack of desire to read books like this (aka non-fiction) I think it may take me a while to get through it.

So far, I've gotten through about half of the first chapter.  And I feel like I should summarize so that I won't forget what I've learned.

• The oil industry started with whale blubber!  It was used to create artificial light, but soon over-fishing of the whales was threatening their existence, so people were forced to find another source of oil.
• A guy named Abraham Gesner first patented kerosene in 1854, which soon became the most popular source for light.
• In 1859, Edwin Drake was the first to use a drilling machine to extract oil from underground.
• The oil industry then began to go around in boom and bust cycles where oil prices would constantly change and this created problems in the U.S. economy.
• In 1870, John D Rockefeller established Standard Oil which became the most powerful oil company in the world.  Rockefeller made all kinds of deals with railroad companies to transport the oil, and with other oil companies, creating a monopoly of the oil industry in an effort to regulate prices to end the boom and bust cycles.
• In 1879, the Tidewater Pipeline was completed (a 110 mile long pipeline) by Rockefeller's competitors.
• In 1882, Rockefeller established the Standard Oil Trust giving him the controlling power over his empire across several states.
• By the mid 1880's, Russia emerged as the second leading oil producer in the world through Ludwig and Robert Nobel.
• The Nobel's were the first to employ geologists and to improve the refining process producing a cleaner kerosene.  They also designed and commissioned an oil tanker to ship oil across the ocean without first putting it into barrels.

A lot of information!  I hope I can retain some of this...