![Offshore oil well drilling platform, Continental Oil Co](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Offshore_oil_well_drilling_platform%2C_Continental_Oil_Co.%2C_C.A.T.C.%2C_Gulf_of_Mexico.jpg)
The Age of Oil, also known as the Oil Age, the Petroleum Age, or the Oil Boom, refers to the era in human history characterised by an increased use of
petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
in products and as fuel. Though unrefined petroleum has been used for various purposes since ancient times, it was during the 19th century that refinement techniques were developed and
gasoline
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic co ...
engines were created.
Although crude petroleum oil has been used for a variety of purposes for thousands of years, the Oil Age is considered to have started in the 1800s with the advance of drilling techniques, as well as the processing of products made use in
internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combus ...
s. Alternatively, the age of oil can be placed in the first period until the early 1900s, when oil consumption and combustion engines utilization increased. Contemporary industrial society is built largely on petroleum resources, but the future of the Oil Age has become increasingly controversial as the effects of climate change have become apparent, and use of alternative energy sources increases.
History
Since the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
,
fossil fuel
A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels m ...
s have been used as sources of energy.
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
began to be widely used after 1800 and would continue to be the dominant source of fuel into the 20th century. However, two events set the stage for the Age of Oil: The first was in 1846, when
Abraham Gesner
Abraham Pineo Gesner, ONB (; May 2, 1797 – April 29, 1864) was a Canadian physician and geologist who invented kerosene. Gesner was born in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia (now called Chipmans Corner) and lived much of his life in Saint John, New Bru ...
invented
kerosene
Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was regi ...
making coal and petroleum practical raw materials for lighting fuel. The second was in 1859, when
Edwin Drake
Edwin Laurentine Drake (March 29, 1819 – November 9, 1880), also known as Colonel Drake, was an American businessman and the first American to successfully drill for oil.
Early life
Edwin Drake was born in Greenville, New York on March 2 ...
invented the first modern drilling process for deep oil wells.
John Davison Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He has been widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history. Rockefeller was ...
founded the
Standard Oil
Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...
Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. In 1870, he founded Standard Oil Company and aggressively ran it until he officially retired in 1897.
Karl Friedrich Benz
Carl Friedrich Benz (; 25 November 1844 – 4 April 1929), sometimes also Karl Friedrich Benz, was a German engine designer and automotive engineer. His Benz Patent Motorcar from 1885 is considered the first practical modern automobile and fir ...
developed
petrol
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic co ...
-powered
automobile
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...
s by 1878 and, in 1879, obtained a patent for the practical automobile. The invention of the internal combustion engine was the major influence in the rise in the importance of petroleum.
The beginning of the contemporaneous age of oil is commonly thought of originating in 1901 with the strike at
Spindletop
Spindletop is an oil field located in the southern portion of Beaumont, Texas, in the United States. The Spindletop dome was derived from the Louann Salt evaporite layer of the Jurassic geologic period. On January 10, 1901, a well at Spindleto ...
by
Croatia
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, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
n oil explorer
Antun Lučić and Texan Patillo Higgins, near
Beaumont, Texas
Beaumont is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat, seat of government of Jefferson County, Texas, Jefferson County, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur, Texas, Port Arthur Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area, metropo ...
in the United States which launched large-scale oil production and soon made the petroleum products widely available.
Powered by the increased use of petroleum, the
post–World War II economic expansion
The post–World War II economic expansion, also known as the postwar economic boom or the Golden Age of Capitalism, was a broad period of worldwide economic expansion beginning after World War II and ending with the 1973–1975 recession. The U ...
was a period of economic prosperity in the mid-20th century which occurred, following the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in 1945, and lasted until the early 1970s. It ended with the
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had supp ...
. In 1956, Geophysicist
M. King Hubbert
Marion King Hubbert (October 5, 1903 – October 11, 1989) was an American geologist and geophysicist. He worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. He made several important contributions to geology, geophysics, and petroleum geolog ...
deduced that U.S. oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970 (peaked in 1971) and that oil production would peak "within half a century" on the basis of 1956 data. In 1989, another peak was predicted by
Colin Campbell Colin may refer to:
* Colin (given name)
* Colin (surname)
* ''Colin'' (film), a 2008 Cannes film festival zombie movie
* Colin (horse) (1905–1932), thoroughbred racehorse
* Colin (humpback whale), a humpback whale calf abandoned north of Sydney, ...
Since the 1960s and 1970s, when petroleum production peaked in many industrialized nations, a frequent topic of speculation among scholars has been when worldwide production will peak, as well as when and how the oil age will ultimately end. According to some definitions the age is defined as ending at the point where consumption outstrips the decreasing production making its use unprofitable or impossible.
Contemporary oil
With the dawning of the so-called
Atomic Age
The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear weapon, The Gadget at the ''Trinity'' test in New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, during World War II. Although nuclear chain reactio ...
many observers in the mid-20th century believed that the Oil Age was rapidly coming to an end. The rapid change to atomic power envisioned during this period never materialized, in part due to
environmental fears following high-profile accidents such as the 1979
Three Mile Island accident
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. It began at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclea ...
and the 1986
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...
.
Peak oil
Peak oil is the hypothetical point in time when the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, after which it is argued that production will begin an irreversible decline. It is related to the distinct concept of oil depletion; while ...
is the point in time when the maximum rate of petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production is expected to enter terminal decline. Many believe that we are at or close to the peak, positioning us in the second half of the oil age.
[
] Some estimate, assuming current consumption rates, current oil reserves will last through at least the year 2040. In 2004, OPEC estimated, with substantial investments, it would nearly double oil output by 2025.
[Opec Oil Outlook to 2025 Table 4, Page 12]
See also
;General:
Wheeler No. 1 Oil Well,
Edward L. Doheny
Edward Laurence Doheny (; August 10, 1856 – September 8, 1935) was an American oil tycoon who, in 1892, drilled the first successful oil well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field. His success set off a petroleum boom in Southern California, a ...
,
Texas Oil Boom
The Texas oil boom, sometimes called the gusher age, was a period of dramatic change and economic growth in the U.S. state of Texas during the early 20th century that began with the discovery of a large petroleum reserve near Beaumont, Texas. T ...
,
History of the petroleum industry in Canada
The Canadian petroleum industry arose in parallel with that of the United States. Because of Canada's unique geography, geology, resources and patterns of settlement, however, it developed in different ways. The evolution of the petroleum sector ...
,
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves at an estimated 304 billion barrels (18% of global reserves) as of 2020. The country was one of the world's largest exporters of oil, but the oil industry saw a significant decline since it ...
;Fuels:
Fossil fuel
A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels m ...
,
Unconventional oil
Unconventional oil is petroleum produced or extracted using techniques other than the conventional method (oil well). Industry and governments across the globe are investing in unconventional oil sources due to the increasing scarcity of conventio ...
,
Oil sands
Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitumen, or bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and wate ...
,
Oil shale reserves
Oil shale reserves refers to oil shale resources that are economically recoverable under current economic conditions and technological abilities. Oil shale deposits range from small presently economically unrecoverable to large potentially recovera ...
;Gluts and crisis:
Price of petroleum
The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel () of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Ref ...
,
1980s oil glut
The 1980s oil glut was a serious surplus of crude oil caused by falling demand following the 1970s energy crisis. The world price of oil had peaked in 1980 at over US$35 per barrel (equivalent to $ per barrel in dollars, when adjusted for inf ...
,
1980–1989 world oil market chronology,
1979 energy crisis
The 1979 oil crisis, also known as the 1979 Oil Shock or Second Oil Crisis, was an energy crisis caused by a drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Although the global oil supply only decreased by approximately four per ...
,
Oil price increases since 2003
:''This article is a chronology of events affecting the oil market. For a discussion of the energy crisis of the same period, see 2000s energy crisis. For current fuel prices, see Gasoline and diesel usage and pricing, Gasoline usage and pricing.' ...
,
Oil depletion
Oil depletion is the decline in oil production of a well, oil field, or geographic area. The Hubbert peak theory makes predictions of production rates based on prior discovery rates and anticipated production rates. Hubbert curves predict that ...
;Business:
Chronology of world oil market events (1970–2005)
Basic overview
The 1970s
''See: 1970–79 world oil market chronology''
1970
*January 1: US Federal oil depletion allowance reduced from 27.5 to 22.0 percent.
*May 3: Trans-Arabian Pipeline delivery from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean int ...
,
Company man
A company man in the petroleum industry refers to a representative of an operating/oil exploration, exploration company. Other terms that may be used are company representative, foreman, drill site supervisor (DSV), company consultant, rigsite le ...
,
Drilling Fluids Engineer,
Major Drilling Group International
Major Drilling Group International Inc. is one of the world's largest drilling & mine service companies primarily serving the mining industry.
11
To support its customers’ varied exploration drilling requirements, Major Drilling maintains fiel ...
;Drilling:
Extraction of petroleum
Petroleum is a fossil fuel that can be drawn from beneath the earth's surface. Reservoirs of petroleum was formed through the mixture of plants, algae, and sediments in shallow seas under high pressure. Petroleum is mostly recovered from oil dri ...
,
Oil well
An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas may ...
(
Oil well drilling,
Oil Driller),
Well drilling
Well drilling is the process of drilling a hole in the ground for the extraction of a natural resource such as ground water, brine, natural gas, or petroleum, for the injection of a fluid from surface to a subsurface reservoir or for subsurfac ...
(
Drilling
Drilling is a cutting process where a drill bit is spun to cut a hole of circular cross-section in solid materials. The drill bit is usually a rotary cutting tool, often multi-point. The bit is pressed against the work-piece and rotated at ra ...
),
Drilling rig
A drilling rig is an integrated system that drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill wat ...
(
Wellhead
A wellhead is the component at the surface of an oil or gas well that provides the structural and pressure-containing interface for the drilling and production equipment.
The primary purpose of a wellhead is to provide the suspension point and ...
,
Drill string
A drill string on a drilling rig is a column, or string, of drill pipe that transmits drilling fluid (via the mud pumps) and torque (via the kelly drive or top drive) to the Well drilling#Drill bits in mechanical drilling, drill bit. The term ...
),
Oil platform
An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platfor ...
,
Drillship
A drillship is a merchant vessel designed for use in exploratory offshore drilling of new oil and gas wells or for scientific drilling purposes. In recent years the vessels have been used in deepwater and ultra-deepwater applications, equipped ...
,
Oil well Dog House,
Submersible pump
A submersible pump (or electric submersible pump (ESP)) is a device which has a hermetically sealed motor close-coupled to the pump body. The whole assembly is submerged in the fluid to be pumped. The main advantage of this type of pump is that it ...
,
Well logging
Well logging, also known as borehole logging is the practice of making a detailed record (a ''well log'') of the geologic formations penetrated by a borehole. The log may be based either on visual inspection of samples brought to the surface (' ...
,
Wellbore
A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petrole ...
,
Relief well
Relief wells are used both in the natural gas and petroleum industry and in flood control. Fossil fuels
In the natural gas and petroleum industry, a relief well is drilled to intersect an oil or gas well that has experienced a blowout. Speciali ...
,
Oil well control
Oil well control is the management of the dangerous effects caused by the unexpected release of formation fluid, such as natural gas and/or crude oil, upon surface equipment of oil or gas drilling rigs and escaping into the atmosphere. Technical ...
,
Completion (oil and gas wells)
Well completion is the process of making a well ready for production (or injection) after drilling operations. This principally involves preparing the bottom of the hole to the required specifications, running in the production tubing and its assoc ...
,
Pore pressure gradient
Pore pressure gradient is a dimensional Petrophysics, petrophysical term used by drilling engineers and mud engineers during the design of drilling programs for drilling (constructing) Oil well, oil and gas wells into the earth. It is the pressure ...
,
Offshore drilling
Offshore drilling is a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled below the seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently extract petroleum that lies in rock formations beneath the seabed. Most commonly, the te ...
,
Deepwater drilling
Deepwater drilling, or deep well drilling, is the process of creating holes in the Earth's crust using a drilling rig for oil extraction under the deep sea. There are approximately 3400 deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico with depths greater th ...
,
Drilling fluid
In geotechnical engineering, drilling fluid, also called drilling mud, is used to aid the drilling of boreholes into the earth. Often used while drilling oil and natural gas wells and on exploration drilling rigs, drilling fluids are also us ...
;Other:
Resource curse
The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty or the poverty paradox, is the phenomenon of countries with an abundance of natural resources (such as fossil fuels and certain minerals) having less economic growth, less democracy, or worse ...
,
Oil reserves in Saudi Arabia
The proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia are reportedly the second largest in the world, estimated in 2017 to be (Gbbl hereafter), including 2.5 Gbbl in the Saudi–Kuwaiti neutral zone. This would correspond to more than 50 years of production a ...
,
Problems in oil well drilling,
Oil imperialism,
Energy Slave
An energy slave is that quantity of energy (ability to do work) which, when used to construct and drive non-human infrastructure (machines, roads, Electric power, power grids, fuel, draft animals, Windpump, wind-driven pumps, etc.) replaces a un ...
;Alternatives:
Natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
,
Renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
,
Renewable energy commercialization
Renewable energy commercialization involves the deployment of three generations of renewable energy technologies dating back more than 100 years. First-generation technologies, which are already mature and economically competitive, include b ...
,
History of renewable energy
References and notes
;Citations
* {{cite book , title=The Age of Oil: What They Don't Want You to Know About the World's Most Controversial Resource , page=15 , author=Maugeri, Leonardo , year=2005 , publisher=Globe Pequot , location=Guilford, CT , isbn=978-1-59921-118-3 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mzHt5hYeXlIC
* Goodstein, D. L. (2005). Out of gas: The end of the age of oil. New York., NY: W.W. Norton.
*
Ash, R. Whitaker's World of Facts.
Petroleum politics
20th century
21st century