Technology & Medicine › Industrial revolution › Internal combustion engine and the car
Petroleum industry
1859 (Drake's well, Pennsylvania); Baku wells from 1846· Event· Tools, energy & materials
Mostly agreedGood evidence; some details, dates or numbers uncertain.
Drilling for crude oil and refining it into kerosene, later gasoline, created one of the world's largest industries.
See it on the Technology & Medicine map →How it works
People had long used oil from natural seeps. Wells were drilled at Baku, now in Azerbaijan, from 1846, and Ignacy Łukasiewicz built a refinery in Poland in 1856. On August 27, 1859, Edwin Drake struck oil at about 70 feet near Titusville, Pennsylvania, sparking an oil rush. The main product was kerosene for lamps, replacing whale oil. John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil controlled about 90% of US refining by 1880, until broken up in 1911.
Why it mattered
Oil became the cheap, dense fuel of cars, planes and ships, a raw material for plastics and chemicals, and a driver of geopolitics.
How we know
Drake's well records and local newspapers, Baku and Polish industry records, and the 1911 Supreme Court antitrust case against Standard Oil.
Still unknown or debated
Which well was 'first' depends on definitions: Baku, Poland, Ontario (1858) or Pennsylvania. Chinese salt-well drillers used similar percussion methods centuries earlier.
Connections (3)
▸Petroleum industry fuelled the Internal combustion engine and the carWell documented
The connection
Refiners first wanted kerosene for lamps; gasoline was a nearly worthless by-product. The car turned it into the main product. Cheap, energy-dense gasoline from booming oil fields helped internal combustion engines beat steam and electric cars. Today road transport uses close to half of the world's oil.
When and how
From the 1900s in the US, Russia and beyond; the Spindletop gusher in Texas (1901) flooded the market with cheap oil just as cars took off.
How we know
Oil-industry and fuel-sales statistics show gasoline displacing kerosene as cars spread. Ford's Model T ran on gasoline, though it could also burn kerosene or ethanol.
Debates and open questions
Historians debate whether electric cars, popular around 1900, lost mainly to battery limits or to cheap oil, Ford's low prices and the 1912 electric starter.
▸Petroleum industry later supplied the feedstock of Synthetic plastics (Bakelite)Mostly agreed
The connection
Bakelite was made from coal-tar chemicals, not oil. From the 1920s to the 1950s, oil refining and natural-gas processing yielded cheap ethylene, propylene and benzene, which became the building blocks of polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC and polystyrene. Today almost all plastics, by common estimates about 99%, come from fossil fuels.
When and how
Union Carbide began making ethylene from petroleum gases in West Virginia around 1920; ICI discovered polyethylene in England in 1933; oil-based plastics boomed after World War II.
How sure are we?
Chemical-industry records and production data show the shift from coal-tar and plant feedstocks to oil and natural gas by the 1950s.
Debates and open questions
Whether plastics can move to plant-based or recycled feedstocks at scale is open; estimates of the share of world oil used for plastics vary, roughly 4–8%.
▸Petroleum industry fuels the Jet engineWell documented
The connection
Jet engines burn kerosene, a petroleum product first refined for lamps in the 1850s. It packs much energy per pound, stays liquid in high-altitude cold, and is safer to handle than gasoline. Jet fuel is now roughly 7% of world oil use, and fuel is one of an airline's biggest costs.
When and how
Kerosene refining from the 1850s in Pennsylvania and Baku; standard jet fuels from the 1940s–50s; Jet A and Jet A-1 power airliners worldwide today.
How we know
Fuel specifications, refinery output data and airline cost reports document the dependence; the airline trade body IATA puts fuel at roughly a quarter of operating costs.
Debates and open questions
Whether sustainable aviation fuels made from waste oils or plants, or hydrogen, can replace petroleum at scale and at an affordable cost is a major open question.