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| The first major oil fields were discovered in Pennsylvania |
When I was a teenager I grew up with my grandmother in a remote barangay, it is so remote that even today the electricity is still until midnight and there are no electricity during the day. My grandmother used to stock gasoline on her toilet for selling, the fume of the gasoline serves as the deodorizer of the room. But any way one day it came up into my mind, Where this stuff came from? and when this flammable liquid will run out one day ?.. My questions was never answered that day.
So when this flammable liquid will run out?
Since antiquity, natural petroleum seeps were known, and the petroleum collected there was used for a variety of purposes. Not until the mid-nineteenth century, however, was any formal effort made to extract the oil for commercial use. Petroleum has become steadily more useful and valuable since the first oil well was drilled by Edwin Drake (1819-1880) in 1859. The first major oil fields were discovered in Pennsylvania and Ohio, with major strikes in Texas and Oklahoma to follow in 1901. Shortly after, the first oil concessions in Persia (now Iran) were granted, and the race for Middle East oil was on. Since that time, the discovery and exploitation of oil in the Middle East has had a profound influence on modern society and politics. Oil created vast fortunes and industrial empires, launched at least one war, promoted the widespread use of petroleum, gave birth to OPEC, realigned twentieth-century politics, and much more. It's safe to say that the huge reserves found in the Middle East played a tremendously important role in shaping the world we live in. CHAPTER 2
