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oil industry

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
the business of discovering oil ( petroleum ), extracting it from the ground, refining it into a variety of products, and distributing it to the public. The development of the oil industry in the 19th and 20th cent. provided a source of energy that now supplies about two fifths of the world's energy needs as well as a raw material that chemical and petroleum industries refine into a number of essential chemicals and industrial products. Petroleum seeping out of underground reservoirs has been collected and used for light throughout recorded history. In the 4th cent. A.D. the Chinese drilled for oil and natural gas, but in the 1850s, oil was still being recovered by skimming it off the tops of ponds. As whale oil became less abundant, producers looked for new ways to extract oil. Edwin Drake dug the first modern oil well in Titusville, Pa, hitting oil at 69.5 ft (21.2 m), touching off an oil rush in the area. (Most modern wells go down over 4,700 ft (1,432 m).) In 1861 the first oil…
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Full text Article OIL INDUSTRY

From The Reader's Companion to American History
Many of the early explorers of America encountered petroleum deposits in some form. They noted oil slicks off the coast of California in the sixteenth century. Louis Evans located deposits along the eastern seaboard on a 1775 map of the English Middle Colonies. Settlers used oil as an illuminant for…
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Full text Article oil industry

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
the business of discovering oil ( petroleum ), extracting it from the ground, refining it into a variety of products, and distributing it to the public. The development of the oil industry in the 19th and 20th cent. provided a source of energy that now supplies about two fifths of the world's energy…
| 901 words
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1. Petroleum Prior to the Modern Era 2. Oil's Age of Illumination 3. Competition and Monopoly 4. Technological Change and Energy Transition 5. Abundance, Scarcity, and Conservation 6. The Globalization of the Industry 7. International Competition and War…
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During the 20th century oil became a major revenue source for a number of Middle Eastern nations. The first petroleum concession was signed between the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and the Qajar shah of Iran in 1901. An Australian, William Knox D'Arcy, negotiated the contract, whereby the shah…
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Full text Article Nigeria: Industry, Oil, Economy

From Encyclopedia of African History
At independence in 1960 Nigeria lacked modern industries worthy of note. Successive independent governments were determined to right this colonial neglect. The first step was to provide a conducive setting, through appropriates legislation and incentives to industrialists such as tax holidays to…
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Major oil and gas installations in the...
The impacts of oil exploration and production are the inevitable consequences of industrialization and economic development in Nigeria, which have not been well managed. The Niger Delta region of Nigeria where crude oil is produced from nearly 200 oil fields, 11,000 km of aging flow lines and over…
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Full text Article Rockefeller, John D. (1839–1937), oil-industry leader and philanthropist.

From The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
John D. Rockefeller dominated the U.S. petroleum industry, developed management techniques that revolutionized American business, and—perhaps his greatest legacy—contributed more than $550 million to philanthropic institutions. John Davison Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York, the son of…
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Full text Article Oil Industry: Panoramic Photographs, 1851–1991

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
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Full text Article Industry

From Collins Little Books: Scottish History: From Bannockburn to Holyrood
Industry
In the 19th century, Scotland’s population doubled, growing to exceed four million, and for the first time more Scots lived in towns and cities than in the countryside. Glasgow, the self-proclaimed ‘Second City of Empire’, saw the greatest increase with a tenfold rise in population and reached one…
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Full text Article Luling

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Town on the San Marcos River, situated in Caldwell County, central Texas , 45 mi/72 km from Austin; population (2000 est) 5,100. Luling developed as a cattle raising centre and transhipment point and later became an agricultural centre focused on cotton and maize, the oil industry is also important…
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