THE STORY OF PETROL

Petrol is the one that changed the fortunes of many countries and countless number of people around the world. No one went after this all essential oil but it came by its own. In 1847James Young, a Scottish Chemist, accidentally discovered petrol. He noticed a natural petroleum seepage in Riddings colliery at Alfreton, Derbyshire from which he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a thicker oil suitable for using as a lubricating agent for machinery.

However Edwin Drake's 1859 well near Titusville, Pennsylvania is generally considered as the first modern well. In 1858 Georg Christian Hunaus had found a significant amount of petroleum while drilling for lignite in 1858 in Wietze, Germany.

Oil was used since long for lamps. In the known history. The first oil well was drilled in China in 347 AD. In the modern era the first oil well was drilled at a depth of 280 ft in Trinidad in 1857 by the American Merrimac Company. The first oil well in Persian Gulf countries came up in Behrain in 1932 with a production of 9,600 barrels per day. This went up to 70,000 barrels per day in 1970. The first oil well was dug and completed in India in 1890 in Digboi, Assam with a depth of 662 ft with a production of 200 gallons a day.

(Indebted to different web sources for data and istock for image)

K V George