History of the petroleum industry

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The modern petroleum industry along with its outputs and applications started in the 1800s, although the local use of oil goes back many centuries. Petroleum's status as a key component of politics, society, and technology has its roots in the coal and kerosene industry of the late nineteenth century. One of the earliest instances of this is the refining of paraffin from crude oil. Abraham Gesner developed a process to refine a liquid fuel (which he would later call kerosene) from coal, bitumen and oil shale; it burned more cleanly and was cheaper than whale oil. James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage when he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a thicker oil suitable for lubricating machinery. The world's first refineries and modern oil wells were established in the mid-nineteenth century. While petroleum industries developed in several countries during the nineteenth century, the two giants were the United States and the...

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