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Introduction:
Petroleum is energy, stored deep in the earth by nature. The word, petroleum, comes from two Latin words: “petra”, a rock; and “oleum”, oil. This is a non-renewable energy source because petroleum supplies are limited and they draw on finite resources that will eventually dwindle. Petroleum includes crude oil, condensate and natural gas. They are forms of chemical energy, which is energy stored in the bonds of atoms and molecules.
Since early times, man has collected petroleum. More than 2,000 years ago, the Chinese used bitumen (a form of petroleum) to build the Great Wall of China. Around the same time, Ancient Egyptians discovered that thick oil was useful to grease the wheels of their chariots.
During the European Middle Ages, the Venetian explorer, Marco Polo, wrote that there were “oil springs” at Baku, on the Caspian Sea, towards the end of the thirteenth century. Early European adventurers also detected “oil springs” in the American colonies. There are accounts of a Franciscan monk who said he visited oil springs near New York in 1632. Early settlers in Texas were disgusted by the black, filthy stuff they could do nothing with. The discovery and production of Texas oil occurred sporadically during the second half of the nineteenth century.
For more information about the early Texas oil industry,
go to:
 www.priweb.org/ed/pgws/history/spindletop/spindletop.html
However, it was in Pennsylvania USA that the first commercial petroleum well was drilled in 1859. Petroleum was discovered at a shallow depth of only 21 metres through “Drake’s well”, located in Titusville, Venango County, Pennsylvania.
For more information about Drake’s well,
go to:
www.priweb.org/ed/pgws/history/pennsylvania/pennsylvania.html
The commercial petroleum industry was born. Early modern discoveries of petroleum relied on these small surface wells. In the United States, bores that were used for water began producing crude oil. People soon found that this crude oil could be used to make lamp oil, lubricants, gas for lamps and paraffin wax. At that time, petroleum was called coal oil. The discovery of petroleum eventually closed the nineteenth century whale-oil industry. The Industrial Revolution in England, Europe and the United States had depended on whale oil to lubricate factory machines. You could say that the oil and gas industry has helped to save the whale!
For more information about the modern petroleum industry,
go to:
www.answers.com/topic/history-of-the-petroleum-industry
Now, petroleum literally turns the wheels of industry. Hundreds of products are made from petroleum. Petroleum is found in three forms: as a solid, called bitumen; as a liquid, which is usually called crude oil or condensate; and as a gas, such as methane and ethane. The list is astonishing - and it gets longer every year. Petroleum includes liquefied gases; motor, aviation and tractor fuels; jet aviation fuel; kerosenes; distillates (diesel fuels and light heating oils); lubricating oils and greases (more than 1,000 kinds); rust preventives; transformer and cable oils; and asphalts, for road making.
Both liquid oil and natural gas are generally found together.
Whether a discovery becomes an oil or a gas field depends solely on whether there is more of one fossil fuel or the other fossil fuel in the area. Crude oil and natural gas are made up of the same molecular building blocks. Both are a mixture of hydrocarbons, which are combinations of hydrogen and carbon. There are hundreds of hydrocarbons in petroleum. There are also small amounts of nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur. So petroleum and natural gas are parts of the same group of chemical compounds. But gases have smaller molecular structures and petroleum liquids have larger molecular structures.
To find out more about hydrocarbons,
go to:
www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Hydrocarbon
 Next Section >> How was petroleum formed?
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