A Chronology of U.S. Oil & Gas
This Week in Petroleum History
This Week in Petroleum History, December 4 to December 10
December 4, 1928 - First Oil Discovery using Reflection Seismography - Following tests in the early 1920s, reflection seismic technology was first used to find oil in Oklahoma when Amerada Petroleum Corporation drilled a well into the Viola limestone formation near...
This Week in Petroleum History, November 27 to December 3
November 27, 1940 - Art Museum features Painting of Mobilgas Station - With petroleum company service stations already part of America's popular culture, Edward Hopper's painting "Gas" was first exhibited by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Art...
This Week in Petroleum History, November 20 to November 26
November 20, 1866 - Improved Well Torpedo patented - Col. Edward A.L. Roberts of New York City patented improvements to his Roberts Torpedo, an oilfield technology for increasing production by fracturing oil-bearing formations. "Our attention has been called to a...
This Week in Petroleum History, November 13 to November 19
November 14, 1947 - First Oil Well drilled Out of Sight of Land - The modern offshore oil and natural gas industry began in the Gulf of Mexico with the first oil well successfully completed out of sight of land. Brown & Root Company built the experimental...
This Week in Petroleum History, November 6 to November 12
November 6, 1860 - First Multi-Still Oil Refinery started in Pennsylvania - As the Civil War neared, construction began on America's first multiple-still oil refinery. William Barnsdall, who drilled a commercial oil well soon after the first U.S. oil well of August...
This Week in Petroleum History, October 30-November 5
October 30, 1894 - "Golden Rule" Jones invents a Better Sucker Rod - Samuel M. Jones patented a sucker rod design for his Acme Sucker Rod Company, which he had founded in 1892 in Toledo, Ohio. With his “Coupling for Pipes or Rods,” Jones applied his oilfield...
This Week in Petroleum History, October 23 to October 29
October 23, 1908 - Salt Creek Well launches Wyoming Boom - Wyoming's first oil boom began when the Dutch company Petroleum Maatschappij Salt Creek completed its "Big Dutch" well about 40 miles north of Casper. Salt Creek's potential had been known since the 1880s,...
This Week in Petroleum History, October 16 to October 22
October 16, 1931 - Natural Gas Pipeline sets Record - The first long-distance, high-pressure U.S. natural gas pipeline went into service during the Great Depression, linking prolific Texas Panhandle gas fields to consumers in Chicago. A.O. Smith Corporation developed...
This Week in Petroleum History, October 9 to October 15
October 9, 1999 - Converted Offshore Platform launches Rocket - Sea Launch, a Boeing-led consortium of companies from the United States, Russia, Ukraine and Norway, launched its first commercial rocket using the Ocean Odyssey, a modified semi-submersible drilling...
This Week in Petroleum History, October 2 to October 8
October 2, 1919 - Future "Mr. Tulsa" incorporates Skelly Oil - Skelly Oil Company incorporated in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with founder William Grove Skelly as president. He had been born in 1878 in Erie, Pennsylvania, where his father hauled oilfield equipment in a...
History of oil and Gas
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