A Chronology of U.S. Oil & Gas
This Week in Petroleum History
This Week in Petroleum History, April 12 to April 18
April 13, 1974 - Oklahoma Well sets World Depth Record - After drilling for 504 days and costing about $7 million, the Bertha Rogers No. 1 well reached a total depth of 31,441 feet (5.95 miles) before being stopped by liquid sulfur. Drilled in the heart of Oklahoma's...
This Week in Petroleum History, April 5 to April 11
April 5, 1860 - Early Success for New U.S. Oil Industry - Inspired by Edwin L. Drake's 1859 first U.S. oil well at nearby Titusville, Pennsylvania, a newly formed company found an oilfield along the Allegheny River at Oil City. With oil fever attracting thousands to...
This Week in Petroleum History, March 29 to April 4
March 29, 1819 - Birthday of Father of the Petroleum Industry - Edwin Laurentine Drake was born in Greenville, New York. Forty years later, he used a steam-powered cable-tool rig to drill the first commercial U.S. oil well at Titusville, Pennsylvania. The former...
This Week in Petroleum History, March 22 to March 28
March 23, 1858 - Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company reorganizes to drill First Oil Well - Investors from New Haven, Connecticut, organized the Seneca Oil Company with $300,000 in capital after purchasing the Titusville leases of the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, which...
This Week in Petroleum History, March 15 to March 21
March 16, 1911 - Pegasus Trademark takes flight - A Vacuum Oil Company subsidiary in Cape Town, South Africa, trademarked a flying horse logo inspired by Pegasus of Greek mythology. Based in Rochester, New York, Vacuum Oil had built a successful lubricants business...
This Week in Petroleum History, March 8 to March 14
March 9, 1930 - Prototype Oil Tanker is Electrically Welded - The world's first electrically welded commercial vessel, the Texas Company (later Texaco) tanker M/S Carolinian, was completed in Charleston, South Carolina. The shipbuilding boom during World War I had...
This Week in Petroleum History, March 1 to March 7
March 1, 1921 - Halliburton improves Well Cementing - Erle P. Halliburton patented his "Method and Means for Cementing Oil Wells," helping to improve a key oilfield technology. "It is well known to those skilled in the art of oil well drilling that one of the...
This Week in Petroleum History, February 22 to February 28
February 22, 1923 - First Carbon Black Factory in Texas - Texas granted its first permit for a carbon black factory to J.W. Hassel & Associates in Stephens County. Scientists had discovered that carbon black greatly increased the durability of rubber used in...
This Week in Petroleum History, February 15 to February 21
February 15, 1982 - Deadly Atlantic Storm sinks Drilling Platform - With rogue waves reaching as high as 65 feet during an Atlantic cyclone, offshore drilling platform Ocean Ranger sank on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Canada, killing all 84 on board. A Soviet...
This Week in Petroleum History, February 8 to February 14
February 9, 2013 - Making Hole on the Red Planet - Images transmitted from NASA's robotic rover Curiosity confirm it drilled a well on the Martian surface, accomplishing "history’s first ever drilling and sampling into a pristine alien rock on the surface of another...
History of oil and Gas
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