Monday Morning Mock Draft: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

Edwin Drake’s 1859 oil well at Titusville, Pennsylvania, which started the modern petroleum industry. The results of this strike absolutely created the modern world and precipitated the momentous geo-political events that ensued. It might be the most important single event in the last 1000 years.

Petroleum was known throughout the world for centuries due to natural seepages, and oil drilling was already a thing, as well as refining petroleum into kerosene and other basic useful purposes. “Rock oil” was a sealant, a mortar, and a medicine, provided lighting when soaked in rags on sticks for centuries, and even used as a flammable weapon as far back as the ancient Greeks if not further.

But the Pennsylvania strike was in the right place, with the right crude, at the right time. Pennsylvania crude was known as “light and sweet,” meaning it was rich in the valuable fractions that produced kerosene (then the most valuable fraction) and other light elements that would find great use in the years ahead. The modern refining industry grew centered in Cleveland Ohio, which was a transportation crossroads of railroads, Great Lakes shipping, and close access to the Ohio River and thence the Mississippi. Three competing railroads (New York Central RR, Pennsylvania RR, & Erie RR) all crossed the oil regions and competed for oil shipments. In fact it started an oil boom.

In Cleveland, a company called Standard Oil was formed, headed by John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler, and they would soon dominate the rapidly growing petroleum industry, at one point owning over 90% of the U.S. market, fast dominating the world market, producing and marketing their products with a ruthless efficiency and secretly punishing their competitors that few could keep up and eventually sold out to “The Standard,” increasing its market share even more. In fact, Standard intentionally would not exceed 90% share because they didn’t want to be scrutinized as a monopoly (which eventually they were).

Later, even larger oil fields were discovered in Texas, the Gulf Coast, and California. The United States is still the largest oil producing country in the world, followed by Russia, and then Saudi Arabia.

Mass produced (and pure) Standard kerosene was revolutionary. It was “the new light;” clean, bright, and inexpensive, with new cold blast lanterns (provided cheap or free by Standard) that safely burned kerosene for bright light at night. It changed the way people lived. The invention of the electric light bulb coincides with the massive growth of the internal combustion engine in airplanes and automobiles. Other fractions created the modern chemical and plastics industries. All jet aircraft engines run on kerosene. Everything you do in life, since then a still today, is 100% dependent on petroleum products whether you know it or not.

From 1904 to 1910, the Royal Navy transitioned its ships from coal to oil at the insistence of First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher. The British Empire was the dominant economic superpower for 200 years; this transition would be the first and biggest nail in its coffin. Previously the Royal Navy and the even larger British merchant fleet used sailing ships powered by the wind (free power). Later they used coal, and Wales particularly is rich with high-quality “steaming” coal. Oil was more efficient as a fuel in many many ways, but Britain had no oil, and didn’t want to be dependent on the U.S. (and Standard) or crazy Venezuela. So they set up their own oil company in Persia (now Iran), way far away, vulnerable, and it led to the rise of the Shah, the crazy ayatollahs, and the the oil-sheikdoms in neighboring territories. The Shah kicks out the British, and eventually OPEC is formed, and the Mideast has been at war ever since.

World War II was about oil. Japan needed Indonesian oil after the U.S. embargoed American oil deliveries, and Japan eventually attacked Pearl Harbor to help secure it (they ultimately failed badly). Hitler invaded Russia to get to the oil fields of the Caucasus (and ultimately failed badly). The dominant American auto industry was crippled by the OPEC embargo of the Yom Kippur War. The invasion of Iraq in 2004 was about oil.

TLDR: Everything is about petroleum. Petroleum is power. Power is everything.

Best book resource: “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power” by Daniel Yergin

Best video resource: The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power, (1992) a PBS documentary based on the above book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2hSATHD634&list=PLYkO4hiKyrSRjZLQunIjgCsz4GrpDGPfN

(NOTE: This post is 100% Brick with just a few fact checks. No cut & paste, no AI. I love this shit and could talk about it for hours, despite having never worked in the oil industry. I have split atoms, though.)