A Chronology of U.S. Oil & Gas
This Week in Petroleum History
This Week in Petroleum History: July 6 – 12
July 6, 1988 - Piper Alpha North Sea Tragedy - An explosion and fire on Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha offshore production platform in the North Sea resulted in the deaths of 167 out of 224 personnel. It remains the most deadly offshore disaster in petroleum...
This Week in Petroleum History: June 29 – July 5
June 29, 1956 - Interstate Highway System enacted - The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, also known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, became law. Passed at the urging of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the act provided 90 percent federal funding for...
This Week in Petroleum History: June 22 – 28
June 23, 1921 - Signal Hill brings California Oil Boom - Another Southern California drilling boom began when a geyser of "black gold" erupted 114 feet high at Signal Hill. The Alamitos No. 1 well revealed a giant oilfield and produced about 600 barrels of oil a day....
This Week in Petroleum History: June 15 – 21
June 15, 1954 - Launch of First Mobile Offshore Rig - The offshore barge oil drilling platform Mr. Charlie left its Louisiana shipyard and went to work for Shell Oil Company in a new oilfield in East Bay, near the mouth of the Mississippi River. The vessel's design,...
This Week in Petroleum History: June 8 – 14
June 8, 1969 - First LNG Export from Alaska - Richfield Oil Company, predecessor of ARCO, exported liquefied natural gas to Japan from the Kenai Peninsula, where Richfield discovered the Swanson River oilfield in July 1957 (see First Alaska Oil Wells). Until it...
This Week in Petroleum History: June 1 – 7
June 1, 1860 - First Book about Oil published - Less than 10 months after Edwin L. Drake completed the first commercial U.S. oil well at Titusville, Pennsylvania, Thomas A. Gale published an 80-page pamphlet many regard as the first book about America’s petroleum...
This Week in Petroleum History: May 25 – May 31
May 26, 1891 - Carbon Black Patent leads to Crayola - Edwin Binney of New York City received a patent for his “Apparatus for the Manufacture of Carbon Black." The process allowed the "manufacture lamp-black from oil in an improved and economical manner." It created a...
This Week in Petroleum History: May 18 – 24
May 18, 1912 - Last Coal-Powered Battleship - The USS Texas, America's only surviving dreadnought -- and the last battleship fueled by coal -- was launched from a shipyard in Newport News, Virginia. Commissioned in 1914 and converted to fuel oil in 1925, the “Big T”...
This Week in Petroleum History: May 11 – 17
May 11, 1880 - Dresser patents Oil Well Device - Solomon Dresser of Bradford, Pennsylvania, patented a rubber "packer" for sealing downhole pressure in wells. The technology behind the patent (no. 227419) helped confine gas, "which enters the well from the lower rocks...
This Week in Petroleum History: May 4 – 10
May 4, 1869 – Offshore Drilling Platform Design patented - Thomas Rowland of Continental Iron Works in Greenpoint, New York, received the first U.S. patent for an offshore drilling rig for his "submarine drilling apparatus." The remarkably advanced platform included a...
History of oil and Gas
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