A Chronology of U.S. Oil & Gas
This Week in Petroleum History
This Week in Petroleum History: March 23 – 29
March 23, 1858 - First American Oil Company reorganizes - 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 had been founded in 1854 by...
This Week in Petroleum History: March 16 – 22
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 9 – 15
March 9, 1930 - First Electrically Welded Vessel: Oil Tanker - An oil tanker became the world's first electrically welded commercial vessel when the Texas Company (later Texaco) tanker M/S Carolinian was completed in Charleston, South Carolina. The World War I...
This Week in Petroleum History: March 2 – 8
March 2, 1922 - Lease sells for $1 Million in Osage Nation - Under the broad crown of a giant elm next to the Osage Council House in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, Skelly Oil and Phillips Petroleum Company jointly bid more than one million dollars for a 160-acre tract of land....
This Week in Petroleum History, Feb. 23 – March 1
February 23, 1906 - Flaming Kansas Gas Well makes Headlines - A small town in southeastern Kansas found itself making headlines when a natural gas well erupted into flames after a lightning strike. The 150-foot burning tower could be seen at night for 35 miles....
This Week in Petroleum History, February 16 – 22
February 16, 1935 - Producing States form Commission - A multi-state government agency that would become the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission was organized in Dallas, Texas, with the adoption of an "Interstate Compact to Preserve Oil and Gas." Plans for...
This Week in Petroleum History, February 9 – 15
February 09, 1953 - TIME features "Fire Beater" Myron Kinley - Myron M. Kinley -- born in 1896 in Santa Barbara, California, the son of an oil well shooter -- was featured in a TIME magazine article about a blowout and fire on a drilling platform 14 miles off the...
This Week in Petroleum History, February 2 – 8
February 2, 1923 - First Anti-Knock Gas goes on Sale - The world’s first anti-knock gasoline containing a tetra-ethyl lead compound went on sale at the Refiners Oil Company service station in Dayton, Ohio. Discovered two years earlier by General Motors scientists,...
This Week in Petroleum History, January 26 – February 1
January 26, 1931 - Third Well reveals Size of East Texas Oilfield - As East Texas farmers struggled to survive the Great Depression, an oil discovery confirmed the existence of a massive oilfield. W.A. “Monty” Moncrief of Fort Worth completed the Lathrop No. 1 well,...
This Week in Petroleum History, January 19 – 25
January 19, 1922 - USGS predicts Oil Shortage, Again - The U.S. Geological Survey predicted America's oil supplies would run out in 20 years. It was not the first nor last false alarm. Warnings of shortages were made for most of the 20th century, according to A Case...
History of oil and Gas
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