Petroleum

“ As petroleum is being used as a substitute for coal—and inasmuch as the whole problem of fuel supply is one—we are ultimately compelled to an investigation of the ability of our petroleum supply to meet its present drain and to meet the expansion in its use, which is the most surprising development of our day in the study of power creation. ”

“ Thirty thousand poods are equivalent to one hundred and twenty-five thousand gallons; multiplied by twenty-four it gives the unprecedented yield of three million gallons a day. Estimating thirty gallons to the barrel, we have a well flowing one hundred thousand barrels of oil daily! This is something never dreamed of by the wildest petroleum speculator in America. A single well of the Baku district is producing more oil than the aggregate of all the petroleum wells in the United States. ”

“ The earth is even being drilled, not for petroleum, but for its huge supplies of natural gas, and the huge reservoirs thus discovered are being harnessed to the thousand wheels of industry. We even find trains fitted with cylinders carrying natural gas stored under high pressure to furnish light for the convenience of passengers, and to enable dainty meals to be cooked in the kitchens of the dining-cars.
The oil refineries, upon receiving the crude petroleum, set out to recover as much paraffin as they could. ”

“ The petroleum industry, in many of its aspects, is the product of development. This statement is true, not only as respects its vast magnitude, but also as pertaining to many of its details. The process of cracking had been employed in treating the distillates from coal before petroleum became an article of commerce; yet petroleum, for a number of years following its discovery in large quantities, was uniformly distilled into naphtha, normal burning-oil, and paraffine-oil. ”

“ Ever since petroleum and its products entered the realm of commercial commodities, there has been a ceaseless search throughout the two hemispheres for crude oil, and to-day there are comparatively few countries in the world where the presence of petroleum has not been proved. ”

“ Given the one allowance that oil fuel can be procured at anything approaching a reasonable figure—and there is no reason why, in normal times, this reasonable price should not be prevalent all over the world—then petroleum offers many advantages over its older competitor, coal. The ease with which large quantities can be handled, the simple method of operating anything which is fired by petroleum as fuel, and the fact that its heat-giving units are far higher than those of coal, will ever be the chief factors governing its popularity. ”

“ And in no sphere of commercial and industrial activity has greater progress been made during the past few decades than in regard to the multiplication in the uses of the products of petroleum. The avenues for advantageous consumption are constantly increasing, and this to such an extent that the production of crude petroleum—enormous though this is—has been outstripped by the demands for the refined product. ”

“ American petroleum is a leading article of commerce, requiring hundreds of vessels to transport it to distant lands. Its refined product is known all over the civilized world. It has found its way to every part of Europe and the remotest portions of Asia. It shines on the western prairie, burns in the homes of New England and illumines miles of princely warehouses in the great cities of America. Everywhere is it to be met with, in the Levant and the Orient, in the hovel of the Russian peasant and the harem of the Turkish pasha. ”

“ Petroleum as a Fuel and Gas-Producer.—The use of gasolene in gas-machines is well known, and sometimes naphtha has been used to enrich coal-gas, by decomposing its vapor at a cherry-red heat, so as to produce a gas rich in heavy hydrocarbons, which is mixed with the coal-gas. Crude petroleum has also been conducted continuously into red-hot cast-iron retorts, whereby it is decomposed and rich gas formed. ”

“ The case of petroleum is peculiarly instructive. When it became apparent, in the early years of the present century that oil burning ships, motor vehicles and air craft were bound to play a determining part in the economic life of the immediate future, various interests such as the Shell Transport, Royal Dutch and the Standard Oil, with the open or tacit backing of their respective state departments, entered on a campaign to secure the world's supply of petroleum. ”

“ So much has been written of late as to the use of petroleum as fuel for the purposes of steam-raising, that the reader is bound to be more or less au fait with the subject. It is, of course, one of vast importance, and during the next decade is certain to receive far more consideration than it has hitherto done, owing to the general desire that our coal wealth shall be conserved as much as possible. ”

“ Petroleum is now mined, or drilled, in many countries besides the United States, but the United States furnishes sixty-three barrels out of every hundred produced in the world. Russia produces twenty-one barrels, Austria four, and the East Indies three barrels, Roumania two, India and Mexico one each, Canada, Japan, Germany, Peru, and Italy each less than one barrel; so we can see that the United States is the one great producer of petroleum, and that it is to this country that we must look for the principal world supply for the present, and as far as known, for the future. ”

“ Petroleum is essentially a volatile oil, and when submitted to distillation yields gases homologous with light carburetted hydrogen of marsh-gas (Ronalds obtained three) , liquids of similar constitution (Pelouze and Cahours isolated twelve) , and solid paraffin-like bodies. Commercially petroleum is distilled so as to yield petroleum-spirit or mineral naphtha used as a substitute for turpentine and for burning in sponge-lamps and costermongers’ barrow-lamps; petroleum oil used all over the world as mineral lamp oil for illuminating purposes; and a heavy oil employed for lubricating machinery. ”

“ It is delivered at your house in neat cans, or the grocer will sell it by the pint, quart, gallon or barrel. The light is pure as heaven’s own sunshine, grateful to the eye and beautifying to the home. No other substance approaches petroleum in the number and utility of its products. Long years of patient research and experiment have extracted from it one-hundred-and-fifty articles of value in art, science, mechanics and domestic economy. ”

“ Petroleum products are also largely utilized in gas manufacture for, (1) the production of “air-gas,” (2) the manufacture of oil-gas, and (3) the enrichment of coal-gas. For heating purposes, the stoves employed are practically kerosene lamps of suitable construction, though gasoline is used as a domestic fuel in the United States. The use of petroleum as liquid fuel is dealt with under Fuel, as is the employment of its products in motors, which has greatly increased the demand for petroleum spirit. ”

“ Taking first the methods of oil transportation by land, in no other oil-producing country do we find such an elaborate system for dealing with enormous quantities of petroleum as in America, for it is safe to say that at least 500,000 barrels of crude oil have to be dealt with daily at the present time. ”

“ On the other hand, the bituminous shales which underlie the different oil regions afford an abundant source of supply, holding the proper relations with the reservoirs that contain the oil, and are spontaneously and constantly evolving gas and oil, as may be observed in a great number of localities. For this reason, while confessing the occurrence of petroleum and asphaltum in many limestones, I am thoroughly convinced that little or none of the petroleum of commerce is derived from them. ”

“ We are apt to ignore the greatness of this loss because the gas escapes into the air and we can not see it, or it burns and we see only its effect, not the loss of fuel, but if we could see it in the form of oil we should find that a billion feet of gas is equal to more than a hundred and sixty thousand barrels of petroleum. ”

“ Extraordinary indications of oil and gas extend over a strip of country twenty-five miles long by a half-mile wide, in porous sandstone. Springs of heavier petroleum flow from hills of volcanic rocks in the vicinity. Open wells, in which the oil settles as it oozes from the rocks, are dug sixteen to twenty feet deep. For countless generations the simple natives dipped up the sticky fluid and carried it great distances on their backs, to burn in its crude state, besides sending a large amount yearly to the Shah’s dominions. ”

“ Of the other fuels available, petroleum takes the leading place, but we are hardly more economical in our use of this fuel and our oil supplies are diminishing much more rapidly than the stores of coal. ”

“ Petroleum is second only to coal as an energy resource. The rapid acceleration in demand from the automobile industry and in the use of fuel oil for power seems to be limited only by the amounts of raw material available.
Production and reserves. The distribution by countries of the present annual production of petroleum, the past total production, and the estimated reserves, is indicated in terms of percentages of the world's total in the table [19] on the opposite page. ”

“ The remarkably perfect methods by which petroleum and its products are transported by land and sea before they reach the consumer may not at first sight appear to be anything but commonplace, but a moment’s reflection will be sufficient to suggest that a vast and complete organization must be required in order that petroleum may be brought from practically the ends of the earth to the consumer in the most remote village in the British Isles. ”

“ The distilling of petroleum, from cannel coal, had assumed very considerable proportions, especially along the Kanawha, when the discovery of natural petroleum, near 1860, by the boring of wells on the waters of the Little Kanawha, marked the beginning of the trade in petroleum, which has become one of the largest and most profitable in the whole world. ”

“ The vast production and low price of crude oil had thrown the manufacture of petroleum into the hands of corporations controlling immense capital, and establishments in which the oil is handled in quantities proportionate to the enormous demand. Meantime a method of refining petroleum bad been generally introduced, by which a large proportion of the total burning-oil produced consisted of mixed or cracked oils. Such a proportion of high-test oils as were demanded by the market was made, but the great bulk of the distillate had been converted into a cracked or mixed oil. ”

“ No brief survey of the petroleum industry would be complete were reference not made to a few of those remarkable commercial undertakings in various parts of the world whose interests are not only closely associated with it, but to whose energies has been due much of the expansion that has been witnessed in every direction during the past few decades. ”

“ The principal uses of petroleum are for burning as crude oil in furnaces and under boilers, particularly in locomotives. The refined products have various uses. Probably the most important is the lubricating oil. This is necessary in the development of all kinds of power. At least one-half pint of lubricating oil is used for every ton of coal consumed for power. All engines, all street and steam railways, steamships, sewing-machines, clocks, watches, and automobiles, in fact all operating machinery requires its use ”

“ The great increase in the consumption of petroleum is ascribable partly to the more extensive use of it as a fuel, in substitution for coal, but mainly to the greater use of gasoline which is directly attributable to the automobile. ”

“ Then there came an account of petroleum or oil wells, in which it was clearly demonstrated that this admirable product represented, in comparison with other oils, a saving of more than sixty per cent; that it gave a light of matchless purity and brilliancy; that it burnt without odor; and, above all, that, in spite of what might have been said by interested persons, there was no possible danger of explosion connected with its use. ”

“ Astral oil and mineral sperm oil are special illuminating oils of high flashing points. Crude petroleum is much used for fuel purposes in engines. Along the Pacific Coast, especially in southern California, where good coal is scarce, the locomotives consume large quantities of crude oil. Paraffin residue is placed on the market for medicinal purposes under the name of vaseline, petroleum ointment, and cosmoline. ”

“ The two chief uses of the distillates from crude petroleum are for illumination and lubrication, but the various fractions in many cases have special applications. Rhigolene is used as a local anaesthetic; petroleum ether is employed as a solvent for caoutchouc, fatty oils, and plant principles, and for carbureting air in gas machines; gasoline is employed in the extraction of oil from oil seeds, in carbureting coal gas, in gasoline lamps, stoves, and plumbers' lamps. ”

“ The Carbon Oil-Company, 184 Water street, New York City, was the chief dealer in the illuminant. The entire petroleum-traffic in 1858 was barely eleven-hundred barrels, most of it obtained from Tarentum. A shipment of twelve barrels to New York in November, 1857, may be considered the beginning of the history of petroleum as an illuminator. How the baby has grown!
The price of “kerosene” or “carbon-oil,” always high, advanced to two dollars a gallon! Nowadays people grudge ten cents a gallon for oil vastly clearer, purer, better and safer! ”