10 events in oil's history that shook the world

Iraq invades Kuwait 1990. (PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images)

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Since the oil industry came into being in the mid-1800s, you could say that it’s been a slightly more controversial industry than most. The scrapes the oil industry has gotten itself into over the last 150 years have shaped the political landscape of the world in many ways.

Oil has caused wars, assassinations, massive man-made disasters, governments being overthrown and effects every single person living in the world today. And to think it all started with an eccentric retired railway engineer being jeered by onlookers in Titusville Pennsylvania.

So with this in mind, ArabianOilandGas.com brings you the 10 oil industry events that shook the world. The events are ranked chronologically, not in order of importance, and we have tried to include events that had widespread political repercussions rather than just being the largest or first.

What is interesting about the list is the amount of events where the actions of maybe one or two people have led to catastrophic results costing many lives and billions of dollars. You can't help wondering how life might have differed  if decision taken at the time had been different. Would OPEC have ever been founded if President Eisenhower had not placed a tax on Middle East oil imports? Would Iraq have invaded Kuwait in 1990 if the Kuwait government had given Saddam Hussein time to repay the loans his country owed them? We'll never know.  

If you feel that we have missed anything from the list that should be there, please feel free to leave a comment.

1. Edwin Drake drills for oil in Pennsylvania
2. Standard Oil is broken up
   
3. The CIA overthrows the Iranian government
   
4. The founding of OPEC
5. Arab oil embargo
   
6. Iranian Revolution causes oil crisis
   
7. Saudi Aramco reverts to state ownership
   
8. Exxon Valdez oil spill
   
9. Iraq invades Kuwait
10. Oil price hits $147

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Edwin Drake drills for oil in Pennsylvania (1859)

For a man credited as the founder of the hydrocarbons industry, Edward Drake made an unlikely oil pioneer.

Drake was a former railroad engineer who was employed by the Seneca Oil Company in the late 1850s to search for oil deposits on land owned by the company in Titusville, Pennsylvania. 

After assembling a team of drillers and purchasing equipment, Drake began the drilling operation. The project suffered numerous setbacks, including several well collapses, crowds turning up daily to jeer and the Seneca Oil Company eventually becoming embarrassed by the whole situation and pulling the financial plug.

But Drake persevered and after securing independant financial backing, made his breakthrough. Drake devised a drilling method where an iron pipe was driven through the ground and into the underlying bedrock, thus allowing him to drill inside the pipe and stopping the hole from collapsing. On August 28th, 1859, Drake’s well, or Drake’s Folly, as it had been called by the locals, successfully began to extract oil.

Drake’s well pumped 25 barrels per day (bpd) of oil that was sold for heating and lighting. Legend has it that the oil was initially collected in a bath tub. 

As with most pioneers Drake failed to build on his early success and died in abject poverty 15 years later. Drake’s fatal mistake was that he failed to file a patent for his drilling system and within days his method for extracting oil was being copied by everyone else. A series of oil booms followed in the area shortly after that all capitalised on Drake's new method. 

However, the engineering principles behind the method are still used today and the site of Drake’s well is now a museum dedicated to the man credited with founding the oil industry as we know it.

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