Azerbaijan oil to Poland reach Poland via Plock and Gdansk.

Azerbaijan oil to Poland reach Poland via Plock and Gdansk

WASHINGTON, Oct। 12 (UPI) -- In the increasingly fractious scramble for the Caspian's burgeoning oil and natural gas energy reserves, resource-poor but strategically vital Eastern Europe is positioning itself to provide both consumer markets and transit routes to Russia for the former Soviet states bordering the world's largest inland sea।It is a development where optimism may well collide with Russia's current near-monopoly of Caspian export routes -- so far, only Azerbaijan, with the Baku-Supsa and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil export routes, has escaped Kremlin control। Kazakhstan is still wedded to using the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's pipeline, dominated by Russia, which terminates at Russia's Sea of Azov Novorossiysk port, while nearly all of Turkmenistan's natural gas exports are forced to rely on Russia's Soviet-era Transneft pipeline monopoly. If Eastern Europe succeeds in its ambitious plans, it will effectively offer an alternative to Russia's domination of energy exports to Eastern and Western Europe, a fact that Central European governments hope will resonate in Paris, Berlin and London.During an energy summit that convened in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, Oct. 10, a provisional agreement was reached by energy and economics representatives from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania to cooperate on extending Ukraine's Odessa-Brody pipeline with a spur to reach Poland via Plock and Gdansk, the latter on the Baltic. The representatives initialed an accord creating the "Sarmatia" consortium, which is to construct the new network, tentatively scheduled to open in 2011.At the end of the first day of the summit at a joint news conference with the presidents of Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Poland and Georgia, Ukrainian President

Viktor Yushchenko was optimistic, telling journalists, "This is a historic step today, which means that a project for delivering Kazakh oil to Europe has moved from the political to the practical level." Yushchenko was candid about Kiev's intentions, stating, "We have never hidden that the implementation of the project for delivering Caspian oil to the European Union is our strategic project," which is important "not only to our country, but is also strategic for Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, and many of our other partners." Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said the meeting was intended for "laying a solid groundwork for transporting energy resources through Georgia and Ukraine to European countries." Both Lithuania and Georgia have been subjected over the years to disputes with Russia over the pricing of energy exports, and their presidents were strongly supportive of the project's potential for diversifying Caspian export routes. Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, whose country in August 2006 saw a cessation of Russian oil exports through its Baltic port of Butinge and Mazeikiu refinery, said, "This indicates the unity and commitment of the entire region for progress, self-determination and a guarantee for sovereignty."Georgia already gets most of its oil from Azerbaijan rather than Russia, and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, in a veiled swipe at Russia's attempt to use energy exports to retain geopolitical influence over the summit members, hailed the new agreement as a sign of "new strategic ties. This is a big change not only in the energy policy of Europe but I think also in wider geopolitics, in the wider configuration of the post-Soviet and post-communist space."Polish President Lech Kaczynski sounded a more conciliatory note, even as he acknowledged that the project "has both an economic nature ... and a huge political impact," adding, "this agreement is not made against any other country." Poland remains vulnerable to Russian export pressure but is potentially the biggest beneficiary of the Sarmatia project, as the projected pipeline extension would reach Plock, site of Poland's largest refinery before terminating at Poland's Baltic Sea port of Gdansk.Behind the rhetoric, however, lie practical issues to be solved. The Odessa-Brody Ukrainian pipeline transports Russian oil from Ukraine's Odessa Black Sea port to Brody, near Ukraine's western border with Poland, leaving Kiev vulnerable in the interim to Russian economic pressure over oil exports.A second potential snag is the fact the Sarmatia network plans to use Azeri oil but possibly include Kazakh exports as well. While Astana sent Energy Minister Sauat Mynbayev to the Vilnius discussions, it remains to be seen how far the government of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is willing to annoy Russia and whether it will commit significant volumes of oil to the project. The history of the Odessa-Brody pipeline, completed in 2001, provides a cautionary tale. The Ukrainian government built the line without having firm commitments from anyone for exports, forcing a reluctant Kiev in 2004 to agree to transport Russian oil in the opposite direction, for export from Odessa rather than westward to Central European markets as originally envisaged.Aliyev for his part has no doubts about the viability of the project, telling journalists, "Our current oil resources are 15 billion barrels and gas reserves are at 2 trillion cubic meters. This is sufficient for the next 150 years. "Azerbaijan has become one of the world's major oil and gas exporters. The Caspian region is Europe's only energy supply alternative. The Caspian corridor is vital for the future."Sweetening the pot, Aliyev offered to sign a long-term agreement between Azerbaijan and the European Union, but the reality is that it remains to be seen whether Azerbaijan can provide sufficient volumes of oil to sustain the project should Kazakhstan decline to participate in any meaningful manner.A follow-up energy summit is to be held in Kiev in 2008; doubtless the participants will have a lot to दिस्कुस्स

Poland's Oil Sector - 10th Edition
A comprehensive guide to Poland's up-stream companies, oil refineries, producers of petroleum products, logistics and trading companies


Red Square, the British owned and managed market research and consultancy company has assessed the developments in Poland's oil and petroleum products market in the last year and prepared a completely revised,new edition of its report on the Polish oil sector, now in its tenth year of publication.
*FINANCIAL SUPPLEMENT ON CD-ROM *
Full accounts (balance sheets and profit and loss accounts) for nearly 140 entries
With your order you will receive the latest set of accounts published by the production companies included in the directory.

Poland's oil refining sector

Information about capacities, future plans and prospects for Poland's refineries. This section includes extensive corporate profiles of all Polish refineries. In addition to contact details, background and ownership information, details of major subsidiaries, production profiles and financial information, each profile gives the latest information on key issues.

Polski Koncern Naftowy ORLEN S.A. - Płock refinery Key issues: Possible merger with Hungarian MOL; take-over of Czech Unipetrol; investigations of Special Parliamentary Commission; plans for expansion in the chemical sector and creation of new operating subsidiaries

Grupa Lotos S.A. (previously Rafineria Gdańska S.A. ) - Gdańsk refinery Key issues: Building of Grupa Lotos with Petrobaltic, as well as the Jasło, Czechowice and Glimar refineries; planned 2005 stock market debut; consolidation of production in paraffins and asphalt and status of the Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) project.

Rafineria Czechowice S.A. Key issues: Integration process with Grupa LOTOS; status of major investment projects and operational information about key subsidiary companies (RC Paliwa Sp. z o.o. and RC Parafiny Sp. z o.o.).

Rafineria Jasło S.A. Key issues: Integration process with Grupa LOTOS and recent investments in fuel re-loading facilities.

Rafineria Nafty Glimar S.A. Key issues: Integration process with Grupa LOTOS; 2003 increase in share capital and investment in the isocracking, hydrofinishing and isodewaxing installation.
Rafineria Nafty Jedlicze S.A. Key issues: Re-processing of used oils and the role of Konsorcjum Olejów Przepracowanych S.A.

Rafineria Trzebinia S.A. Key issues: Activation of a new bio-diesel (methyl ester) production facility and construction of a new product pipeline linking the Płock refinery with Trzebinia; profile of Fabryka Parafin Naftowax Sp. z o.o. subsidiary.
Petrochemia-Blachownia S.A., Kędzierzyn-Koźle

In addition to Poland's major refineries, we profile other producers of oils and lubricants such as: Fuchs Oil Corporation (PL) Sp. z o.o.; Jaschem Rafineria Jasło Sp. z o.o.; LOTOS Oil S.A.; Lubcon Polska Sp. z o.o.; Modex Sp. z o.o.; Naftochem; ORLEN Oil Sp. z o.o.; Petrochem-Płońsk S.A.; Petroil Sp. z o.o.; Silesia Oil Sp. z o.o.; Statoil Lubricants Technologies Sp. z o.o.; Tedex Oil Sp. z o.o.

The Polish petrol, diesel and heating oils market

This section provides information about the market in general. Furthermore over 50 major Polish retailers and wholesalers of fuels are profiled in this section. These include: Anwim Sp. z o.o.; Arge Sp. z o.o.; BDG Sp. z o.o.; BGW Sp. z o.o.; BIS-BEL; Cheman S.A.; Delfin S.A.; Dexpol S.A.; Dulcet Sp. Jawna; Etoll Sp. Jawna; Falco Mazurkiewicz, Gwiazda Sp. Jawna; Fast Oil Gadomski Choroś Sp. Jawna; Firma Bor-Ole Henryk Borkowicz; Firma KI Klemens Imioła; Firma Tank Sp. Jawna; Grosar Sp. z o.o.; Horex A. i E. Horoszkiewicz Sp. Jawna; IMSO Sp. z o.o.; J&S Energy S.A.; Jersak; Kolgard ITC Ltd Sp. z o.o.; Kolgard Oil Sp. z o.o.; Konpal; KR Farmer Sp. z o.o.; LDS S.A.; LOTOS Mazowsze S.A.; LOTOS Paliwa Sp. z o.o.; LTL Sp. z o.o.; Maante Sp. z o.o.; Mares Sp. z o.o.; Mercar Sp. z o.o.; Oktan Sp. z o.o.; Olpak Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Morena Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN PetroCentrum Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN PetroProfit Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN PetroTank Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN PetroZachód Sp. z o.o.; Ortus Jan Ostrowski i Wspólnicy Sp. Jawna; Petrochemia Sp. z o.o.; Petrol Sp. z o.o.; Pieprzyk; Pol-Oil-Company Sp. z o.o.; Pronar Sp. z o.o.; Przedsiębiorstwo Budowlano-Handlowe Z. Niziński; Przedsiębiorstwo Wielobranżowe Apexim AB Adam Baranowski; Raf-Ol Sp. z o.o.; Rolmasz Sp. z o.o.; Tomsol Sp. z o.o.; Tracom Sp. z o.o.; Warsaw Gas Trading Sp. z o.o.; Webo Sp. z o.o.; Zach-Ciech Sp. z o.o.

The company profiles include full contact details, an outline of activities and latest published accounts/financial information where ever available.

This section also includes profiles of the major foreign oil companies active in Poland, including: AS 24 Polska Sp. z o.o.; Ashland Poland Sp. z o.o., Valvoline Polska Division; BGM Molydal C. Borowiecki, H. Gil Sp. Jawna; BP Polska Sp. z o.o.; Castrol Lubricants Sp. z o.o. i Spółka, Sp. Jawna; ConocoPhillips Poland Sp. z o.o.; ExxonMobil Poland Sp. z o.o.; FL Poland Sp. z o.o.; Fortum Polska Sp. z o.o.; Lukoil Polska Sp. z o.o.; Mażeikiu Nafta Trading House Sp. z o.o.; Nynäs Sp. z o.o.; Shell Polska Sp. z o.o.; Slovnaft Polska S.A.; Statoil Polska Sp. z o.o.; Texaco Lubricants Polska Sp. z o.o.; Total Polska Sp. z o.o.
New to this edition - Petrol retailing activities of supermarket chains Ahold Polska Sp. z o.o.; Auchan Polska Sp. z o.o.;E. Leclerc Polska Sp. z o.o.; Géant Polska Sp. z o.o.; Tesco Polska Sp. z o.o.

Marine fuel markets

Companies profiled in this section include: Fox Oil Sp. z o.o.; Petrocargo/OW Bunker Sp. z o.o.; Petro-Trans Sp. z o.o.; Ship-Service S.A.

Aviation fuel markets

Petrolot Sp. z o.o. and Ośrodek Badawczo-Rozwojowy Przemysłu Rafineryjnego, Płock.

Liquid petroleum gas market

Analysis of the market in the year 2003 and profiles of key LPG distributors such as: Bałtyk-Gaz Sp. z o.o.; Barter Sp. z o.o.; Bialchem Group Sp. z o.o.; BP Polska Sp. z o.o.; Dragongaz Sp. z o.o.; Gas Trading Podkarpacie Sp. z o.o.; Gaspol S.A.; Hadex Gaz; Intergaz Sp. z.o.o.; Krak-Gaz Sp. z o.o.; Lukoil Polska Sp. z o.o.; Pegas Oil Sp. z o.o.; Petrolinvest Sp. z o.o.; PKN Orlen Group LPG companies; Polski Gaz Sp. z o.o.; Progas Eurogaz Sp. z o.o.; Shell Gas Polska Sp. z o.o.; Statoil Gaz Sp. z o.o.

Upstream operations

On-shore oil production Latest, official figures on exploitable on-shore gas and crude oil reserves, major reserves of BMB and nearby oil/gas fields. Comprehensive information on production companies such as: PGNiG S.A. and its subsidiaries Zakład Górnictwa Nafty i Gazu w Sanoku and Zakład Górnictwa Nafty i Gazu w Zielonej Górze.
Also on foreign exploration and production companies such as: Apache Poland Sp. z o.o. (in liquidation); CalEnergy Gas (Polska) Sp. z o.o.; Energia Zachód Sp. z o.o.; EuroGas Polska Sp. z o.o.; FX Energy Poland Sp. z o.o.; Medusa Oil and Gas Poland Sp. z o.o.; RWE-DEA Polska Sp. z o.o.

Off-shore production Profile of Petrobaltic Sp. z o.o. Estimated reserves in Poland's offshore oil and gas fields, production figures and forecasts, overseas activities, investments (including information on the Energobaltic project) and financial information.

Logistics

Crude oil and petroleum product pipeline operations Full profile of Przedsiębiorstwo Eksploatacji Rurociągów Naftowych "Przyjaźń" S.A. (PERN), Płock, the possibility of creating a logistics company with the participation of PKN Orlen, Naftobazy and PERN; increase in PERN's operating capacity (pipeline, storage facilities) and the status of the Odessa-Brody pipeline extension project.

Re-loading facilities Profiles of Naftoport Sp. z o.o. (including the Polish Treasury's plans to increase its indirect stake in this company); the bankrupt Porta-Petrol S.A., Świnoujście whose facility is being offered for sale and about the terminal operated by Nynäs Sp. z o.o.

Storage facilities Profile of Naftobazy Sp. z o.o. (including information about the failed 2004 privatisation). Information about Inowrocławskie Kopalnie Soli Solino S.A., IVG Terminal Silesia Sp. z o.o. and LOTOS Partner Sp. z o.o., Gdynia.

Rail transport of crude oil and petroleum products Profiles of: DEC Sp. z o.o.; EuroNaft Trzebinia Sp. z o.o.; LOTOS Kolej Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN KolTrans Sp. z o.o.; Chem Trans Logistic Holding Polska S.A.; PKP Cargo S.A.; Sped-Kol Blachownia Sp. z o.o.

Road transport of petroleum products Information about the leading companies specialising in the road transport of petroleum products, including: ABS Owczarek Spedycja Sp. z o.o.; Equus Samat Sp. z o.o.; Esppol Sp. z o.o.; Hoyer Polska Sp. z o.o.; Nijman/Zeetank International Transport Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Transport Kędzierzyn-Koźle Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Transport Kraków Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Transport Lublin Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Transport Nowa Sól Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Transport Olsztyn Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Transport Płock Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Transport Poznań Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Transport Słupsk Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Transport Szczecin Sp. z o.o.; ORLEN Transport Warszawa Sp. z o.o.; Paul Klacska Polska Sp. o.o.; Pol-Miedź Trans Sp. z o.o.; Rafineria "Jasło" Zakład Transportu Sp. z o.o.; Raf-Trans Sp. z o.o.; RC Transport Sp. z o.o.; Talke Polska Sp. z o.o.; Tedex Spedition Sp. z o.o.; Zakład Transportu Transglimar Sp. z o.o.

The report also provides information about Nafta Polska S।A. the privatisation vehicle for Polish refineries and now the heavy synthesis segment of the Polish chemical sector; contact details for the Ministry of the Environment and regulatory bodies such as Urząd Regulacji Energetyki (Energy Regulation Office) and Agencja Rezerw Materiałowych (The Agency for Material Reserves). Finally, we include information about the activities of oil related industry chambers and associations such as Polska Izba Paliw Płynnych (Polish Chamber of Liquid Fuels); Polska Organizacja Gazu Płynnego (Polish LPG Organisation) and Polska Organizacja Przemysłu i Handlu Naftowego (Polish Oil Trade & Industry Organisation).

Polish Geological Institute
Department of Economical Geology
Mineral Resources of Poland
Crude oil

In Poland, oil fields occur in the Polish Lowland (Niz Polski), the Baltic Sea (Morze Baltyckie), the Carpathian Foredeep (Zapadlisko Przedkarpackie), and on the Carpathians (Karpaty) (see map).
The Polish Lowland has become the most important petroliferous area in this country since BMB oil field was explored in 1996, the resources of which are more than two times as much as the all Poland resources at the time. In this area the next oil and gas fields (Lubiatow, Kosarzyn) were explored in last years.
The Polish Lowland accounts for 76.4 % of the national resources, the Baltic Sea 18.6 %, while the Carpathian Foredeep - 1.6 % and the Carpathians 1.5 % only. The initial proven oil resources of oil and oil condensate, as well as the state of their identification and management are shown in Table 14.1.
In the Polish Lowland, oil fields occur in the Permian, Carboniferous and Cambrian rocks. They yield medium paraffin (4.3 - 7.4 %) oil with sulfur content exceeding 1 % and density ranging from 0.857 g/cm3 to 0.870 g/cm3. In the regions being considered, beside oil fields, there are also oil condensate fields, containing 100 g of condensate per 1 cm3 of gas.
On the Baltic area (off shore) crude oil occurs within the Middle Cambrian measures. Hydrocarbon content amounts to 73 % and density to 0.811 g/dm3. The only exploited deposit is B3, the B8 is explored in details.
In the Carpathian Foredeep, oil fields occur in the Tertiary sediments and the Mesozoic sediments of a platform type (mainly Jurassic carbonate rocks, rarely in Cretaceous sandstones) that mostly underlie the impermeable Miocene clay sediments. They are mainly bedded fields, stratigraphically closed (either lithological or tectonic). In this region, it is light and medium weight oil (it is density being 0.811-0.846 g/cm3). The oil contains 2.32 - 9.37 % paraffin and the content of sulfur ranges, on the average, from 0.45 to 0.85 %.
In the Carpathians oil fields, there occur in several tectonic units, including: the Magura, Dukla-Michow, sub-Silesian, Silesian and Skole one, but most of them lie in the Silesian unit. They are mainly structural fields, seldom structural-lithological ones, mostly of a bedded type.
The Carpathian oil is of methane type. Its density ranges from 0.750 to 0.943 g/cm3. It is free from sulfur, mostly a paraffin oil containing 3.5 - 7 % of paraffin. The reserves are small and they depend on the quantity and type of the structures in which they occur. Initially, in place resources mainly range from a few to over 400 thousand tons. Many years of the exploitation, has exhausted the reserves in this region.
Among 89 oil fields 69 are under exploitation and their resources amount to 93.5 % of the total Polish reserves.
The intrinsically economic oil resources of Poland amounted to about 19,519 thousands tons in 2004, with the total economic reserves amounting to 16,218 thousand tons.
The production (Fig. 14.1) of oil and condensate amounted to 866 thousand tons in 2004. The production of oil from the Carpathian oil fields amounted to 3.44 % of the total Polish oil production, from the Carpathian Foredeep to 2.50 %, from the Polish Lowland to 64.75 % and from the Polish economic zone of the Baltic Sea to 29.33 %.


The History of the Oil Industry (with emphasis on California and Kern County)

Timeline
Oil Through the Ages - 347 B.C. to 1859
California Comes of Age - 1861 to 1899
The Kern County Oil Industry - 1864 to Today
Indians and Oil
Great Gushers of California

Oil Around the World
The Early (Medieval) Oil Industry of Persia
The Early Oil Industry of Poland and Romania
The Early Oil Industry of Pennsylvania
The Early Oil Industry of Texas
The Spindletop Gusher
How the Early Oil Industry Saved the Whales

Oil Through the Ages
347 A.D.
Oil wells are drilled in China up to 800 feet deep using bits attached to bamboo poles.
1264
Mining of seep oil in medieval Persia witnessed by Marco Polo on his travels through Baku.
1500s
Seep oil collected in the Carpathian Mountains of Poland is used to light street lamps.
1594
Oil wells are hand dug at Baku, Persia up to 35 meters (115 feet) deep.
1735
Oil sands are mined and the oil extracted at Pechelbronn field in Alsace, France.
1815
Oil is produced in United States as an undesirable by-product from brine wells in Pennsylvania.
1848
First modern oil well is drilled in Asia, on the Aspheron Peninsula north-east of Baku, by Russian engineer F.N. Semyenov.
1849
Distillation of kerosene from oil by Canadian geologist Dr. Abraham Gesner. Kerosene eventually replaces whale oil as the illuminant of choice and creates a new market for crude oil.
1850
Oil from hand-dug pits in California at Los Angeles is distilled to produce lamp oil by General Andreas Pico.
1854
First oil wells in Europe are drilled 30- to 50-meters deep at Bóbrka, Poland by Ignacy Lukasiewicz.
1854
Natural Gas from a water well in Stockton, California is used to light the Stockton courthouse.
1857
Michael Dietz invents a kerosene lamp that forces whale oil lamps off the market.
1858
First oil well in North America is drilled in Ontario, Canada.
1859
First oil well in United States is drilled 69 feet deep at Titusville, Pennsylvania by Colonel Edwin Drake.

California Comes of Age
1861
First oil well in California is drilled manually in Humboldt County.
1866
Oil is collected from tunnels dug at Sulphur Mountain in Ventura County by the brothers of railroad baron Leland Stanford, the same year that these techniques are applied to the Pechelbronn oil mine in France.
1866
First steam-powered rig in California drills an oil well at Ojai, not far from the Sulphur Mountain seeps.
1875
First commercial oil field in California is discovered at Pico Canyon in Los Angeles County.
1878
Electric light bulb invented by Thomas Edison eliminates demand for kerosene, and the oil industry enters a recession.
1885
Gas wells are drilled in Stockton, California for fuel and lighting.
1885
Oil burners on steam engines in the California oil fields, and later on steam locomotives, create new crude oil markets.
1886
Gasoline-powered automobiles introduced in Europe by Karl Benz and Wilhelm Daimler create additional markets for California oil. Prior to the automobile, gasoline was a cheap solvent produced as a byproduct of kerosene distillation.
1888
A steel-hulled tanker sails from Ventura to San Francisco, eleven years after the 1877 sailing of a Russian tanker across the Caspian sea at Baku.
1899
Discovery of Kern River oil field propels Kern County to top oil-producing region in state.


Bakersfield, 1933
The Kern County Oil Industry
1860s to 1890s - Tar Pits and Tunnels
1864 - Tar mined from open pits at Asphalto (McKittrick) on west side of San Joaquin Valley.
1866 - First refinery in Kern County built near McKittrick tar pits to process kerosene and asphalt.
1878 - First wooden derrick in Kern County constructed at Reward to drill for flux oil to mix with asphalt.
1887 - "Wild Goose" well at Oil City, Coalinga comes in at 10 bbls/day, demonstrating potential of north part of basin.
1889 - Oil wells drilled at Old Sunset (Maricopa) with a steam-powered rig mark discovery of Midway-Sunset field.
1893 - Railroad reaches McKittrick, where tunnels and shafts are dug to mine asphalt.
1894 - Old Sunset (Maricopa) part of Midway-Sunset has 16 wells producing 30 barrels of oil per day.
1890s to 1920s - Gushers and Cable Tools
1896 - Shamrock Gusher blows in at McKittrick and hastens end of tar mining operations.
1899 - Hand-dug oil well discovers Kern River field and starts an oil boom in Kern County.
1902 - Arrival of railroad makes development of Midway-Sunset field economically feasible.
1902 - First rotary rig in Califonia reportedly drills a well at Coalinga field, but the hole is so crooked that a cable tool is used to redrill the well.
1903 - Kern River and Midway-Sunset production makes California the top oil producing state.
1904 - 17.2 million bbls of oil produced at Kern River exceeds annual production from Texas.
1908 - Rotary drilling rigs and crews arrive in California from Louisiana and successfully drill wells at Midway-Sunset field and erase the embaressment of the Coalinga experiment six years earlier.
1909 - Midway Gusher blows out near Fellows and focuses attention on Midway-Sunset field.
1910 - Lakeview Gusher blows in near Taft and becomes America's greatest oil gusher.
1919 - Hay No. 7 catches fire at Elk Hills and becomes America's greatest gas gusher.
1929 - Blowout prevention equipment becomes mandatory on oil and gas wells drilled in California.
1930s to 1950s - Well Logs, Seismic, and Rotary Drilling
1929 - First well logs in California run by Shell in a well near Bakersfield (Kern County).
1930 - Deepest well in the world is Standard Mascot #1, rotary drilled to 9,629 feet at Midway-Sunset.
1936 - First seismic exploration in California discovers Ten Section field near Bakersfield. Seismic discovery of the productive Paloma and Coles Levee anticlines soon follows
1943 - Deepest well in the world is Standard 20-13, drilled to 16,246 feet at South Coles Levee.
1953 - Deepest well in the world is Richfield 67-29 drilled to 17,895 feet at North Coles Levee.
1960s to Today - Steam, Horizontal Wells, and Computers
1961 - First steam recovery projects in Kern County start up at Kern River and Coalinga fields after a successful pilot by Shell at Yorba Linda field in Los Angeles.
1973 - Tule Elk and Yowlumne fields become the last 100-million barrel fields discovered in Kern County.
1980 - First horizontal well in Kern County is Texaco Gerard #6 in fractured schist at Edison field.
1980s - Cogeneration hastens the spread of steam recovery projects, which dramatically ramp up oil production.
1985 - Kern County reaches an all-time production high of 256 million barrels of oil/year. At the same time, California reaches an all-time production high of 424 million barrels of oil/year.
1990s - 3D-seismic data and 3D-computer modeling of reservoirs bring new life to old fields.
1997 - Deepest horizontal well in Kern County is Yolwumne 91X-3 with measured depth of 14,300 feet. However, the well is surpassed only two years later by the relief well for the Bellevue blowout.
1998 - A blowout and fire at the Bellevue #1 wildcat in the East Lost Hills subthrust fuels hopes for the first major Kern County discovery in over a decade.
And throughout much of this Kern County oil history, members of the San Joaquin Geological Society were holding monthly dinner meetings and sharing a beer with the likes of Senteur de Boue. Click here to learn more about the history of this esteemed organiziation.


The Oil Industry of Medieval Persia (Azerbaijan)
When Marco Polo in 1264 visited the Persian city of Baku, on the shores of the Caspian Sea in modern Azerbaijan, he saw oil being collected from seeps. He wrote that "on the confines toward Geirgine there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, inasmuch as a hundred shiploads might be taken from it at one time." In addition to oil seeps, Marco Polo also saw spectacular mud volcanos, sourced by natural gas seeping through ponds, and a flaming hillside, the "Eternal Fires of the Apsheron Peninsula", where condensate and natural gas seeping through fractured shales has burned, and been worshipped, for centuries.
Shallow pits were dug at the Baku seeps in ancient times to facilitate collecting oil, and hand-dug holes up to 35 meters (115 feet) deep were in use by 1594. These holes were essentially oil wells, which makes Baku the first true field. Apparently 116 of these wells in 1830 produced 3,840 metric tons (about 710 to 720 barrels) of oil. Later, Russian engineer F.N. Semyenov used a cable tools to drill an oil well on the Apsheron Peninula, ten years before Colonel Drake's famous well in Pennsylvania. Also, offshore drilling started up at Baku at Bibi-Eibat field near the end of the 19th century, about the same time that the "first" offshore oil well was drilled in 1896 at Summerland field on the California Coast.
check out the link below to learn more about the oil history of Azerbaijan
www.azer.com
left: offshore wells on the Aspheron Peninsula
above: a hand-dug well at Bibi-Eibat field


The Early Oil Industry of Poland and Romania
The Carpathian Mountains in Poland abound in oil seeps, and Carpathian oil, hand dipped from pits dug in front of the seeps, was burned in street lamps, as early as the 1500s, to provide light in the Polish town of Krosno. Unfortunately, the seep oil was a dark, viscous liquid that stuck to everything. It also burned with a foul smell and gave off more smoke and soot than other lamp oils, most of which were rendered from animal fat.
Ignacy Lukasiewicz, a Polish druggist in the modern Ukranian town of Lvov, saw the potential of using seep oil in lamps as a cheap alternative to expensive whale oil. To make a clean-burning fuel, he began experimenting with distillation techniques, perfected earlier by Dr. Abraham Gesner in Canada, to produce clear kerosene from smelly seep oil. His experiments gained notoriety, and the European oil industry was born on a dark night on July 31, 1853 when Lukasiewicz was called to a local hospital to provide light from one of his lamps for an emergency surgery. Impressed with his invention, the hospital ordered several lamps and 500 kg of kerosene. Lukasiewicz enlisted the aid of a business partner and traveled to the Vienna, capitol city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to register his distillation process with the government on December 31, 1853.
To provide oil for his kerosene business, Lukasiewicz initially collected a thick, sticky crude from shallow, hand-dug wells in the Gorlice region, an area in the Carpathians about 50 miles west of the Polish town of Bóbrka. The following year, he teamed up with Titus Trzecieski and Mikolaj Klobassa to establish an "oil mine" in Bóbrka which pumped crude oil from hand-drilled, 30- to 50-meter deep wells. Later, wells as deep as 150 meters were drilled that produced a lighter, better-quality crude from which to distill kerosene. Other entrepreneurs dug their own wells and a thriving Polish oil industry developed, which was followed in 1857 by the drilling of wells at Bend, northeast of Bucharest, on the Romanian side of the Carpathians. A full two years later, Colonel Edwin Drake, who perhaps had knowledge of the Polish developments, drilled his famous well in Pennsylvania, an event wrongly labeled by many in the industry as the drilling of the "first oil well".
Many of these early wells were laboriously dug by hand. Others were drilled with spring poles, in which a springy wooden pole was stuck in the ground at an angle and a heavy metal drill bit attached by a cable to the head of the pole. Operators would bounce up and down on stirrups attached to the pole, causing the bit to literally chop a hole into the hard ground. The hole was cleaned by lowering into the hole a specially designed bucket, called a bailer, which was similarly bounced up and down until it filled dirt and cuttings to be hauled to the surface.
Steam engines were employed to mechanically drill wells in the Pennsylvania oil fields during the U.S. Civil War, and Thomas Bard imported a steam-powered drilling rig and crew from Pennsylvania to successfully drill a mediocre oil well in California in 1865. Steam was first used in Poland two years later in 1867 to drill a well at Kleczany, 60 kilometers west of the Bóbrka field. Steam-powered drilling made its debut at Bóbrka a few years later, sometime between 1870 and 1872, and enabled operators to drill much deeper than they had been able to previously. Within a few years virtually all oil wells, in both the United States and Europe, were being drilled mechanically.
(Excerpted from various issues of the AAPG Explorer)


The Early Oil Industry of Pennsylvania
Oil Creek in western Pennsylvania abounds in oil seeps that ooze thick black crude into the stream. These seeps were well known to the Seneca Indians, one of the Iroquois Nation tribes, who used the oil as a salve, mosquito repellent, purge and tonic. Many settlers also believed that these oils were medicinal, and "hawkers" sold bottles of it, as early as 1792, as a cure-all called "Seneca Oil". The nearby Allegheny and Kiskiminetas river valleys had oil also, but beneath the ground, where as early as 1815 it was contaminating several of the brine wells that supplied a booming salt industry in the Pittsburgh area.
In the early 1850s, a Pittsburgh druggist named Samuel Kier began selling bottled oil from his father's brine wells as "Pennsylvania Rock Oil", but met with little success. One day, Colonel A. C. Ferris, a whale oil dealer, processed a small amount of Kier's "tonic" to make a lighter oil that burned well in a lamp. When Kier heard about this, he began using a one-barrel whiskey still of his own to convert his rock oil into lamp oil. After Kier upgraded his still to five-barrel capacity, Pittsburgh forced him to move his operation to a suburb out of fear of an explosion.
When George Bissell, a New York lawyer, learned of Kier's operation, he hired Benjamin Silliman Jr of Yale University, probably around 1854, to see if Seneca Oil would yield lamp oil. Silliman successfully distilled the oil into several fractions, including an illuminating oil already known as kerosene. Armed with Silliman's results, Bissell received financial backing to form the "Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company", which later became the "Seneca Oil Company".
An unemployed railroad conductor and express agent named Edwin Drake, who by chance was staying at the same hotel in New Haven, Connecticut as Bissel and his partners, was hired in 1857 to visit Titusville, a town on Oil Creek. Drake's only qualification for this assignment was a free railroad pass remaining from his previous job. Although Drake had never been in the military, when he returned to Titusville the following year to commence operations as a Seneca Oil Company agent, his employers passed him off as a colonel to give their venture an air of respectability.
Historically, oil was collected at Oil Creek by damming the creek near a seep, then skimming oil off the top of the resulting pond. Drake tried this at a seep once used by a sawmill to produce oil for lubricating the mill machinery, but even with improvements and opening up other seeps in the area, he only increased production from three or four gallons to a still non-economic six to ten gallons a day. Next workers tried digging a shaft to mine the oil, but groundwater flooded in too quickly for the workers to continue. Finally, Drake decided to drill a well and locate the source of the seep oil, using the same steam-powered equipment used to drill brine wells.
He hired a blacksmith named "Billy" Smith, who had drilled brine wells for Kier and others in the Pittsburgh area. Smith, with his son Samuel, began drilling in the summer of 1859. Although progress was slow, usually three feet a day in shale bedrock, they reached a depth of 69½ feet by August 27, just as Drake was reaching the last of his funds. When Billy and Samuel pulled their drilling tools from the well the next morning, they noticed oil rising in the hole. After installing a hand-operated lever pump borrowed from a local kitchen, the first days production was about twenty-five barrels. Production soon dropped off to a steady ten barrels or so a day, and the well is said to have continued at that rate for a year or more.
Although Drake's well was no gusher, it was the beginning of an idea. Titusville transformed almost overnight from a quiet farm town to an oil boom town of muddy roads, hastily constructed wooden derricks, and noisy steam engines. The Pennsylvania oil boom was on.
check out the links below to learn more about the early oil history of the United States little-mountain.com/oilwell www.oilhistory.com www.priweb.org/ed/pgws


The Early Oil Industry of Texas
click here to learn about The Spindletop Gusher and the Birth of the Texas Oil Industry


How the Oil Industry Saved the Whales
Prior to the 1800s, light was provided by torches, candles made from tallow, and lamps which burned oils rendered from animal fat. Because it burned with less odor and smoke than most fuels, whale oil, particularly oil from the nose of the sperm whale, became popular for lamp oils and candles. However, sperm oil, widely known as "spermaceti", was very expensive. In fact, a gallon in the early 1800s cost about $2.00, which in modern values equates to about $200 a gallon. Nonetheless, whale oil was the illuminant of choice for those rich enough to afford it.
A thriving whaling industry developed to provide sperm oil for lighting, and regular whale oil as a lubricant for the machine parts of trains. In the United States alone, the whaling fleet swelled from 392 ships in 1833 to 735 by 1846. At the height of the industry in 1856, sperm oil sold for $1.77 a gallon, and the United States was producing 4 to 5 million gallons of spermaceti and 6 to 10 million gallons of train oil annually.
The demand for whale oil took a tremendous toll on whales, and some species were driven to the very brink of extinction. The right whale, one of the scarcer varieties, was killed in the early 1800s at a rate of about 15,000 per year. When the growing scarcity of this whale forced attention to other species, only about 50,000 right whales remained. Had demand for whale oil continued, extinction would have undoubtedly claimed several species.
When a clean-burning kerosene lamp invented by Michael Dietz appeared on the market in 1857, its effect on the whaling industry was immediate. Kerosene, known in those days at "Coal Oil", was easy to produce, cheap, smelled better than animal-based fuels when burned, and did not spoil on the shelf as whale oil did. The public abandoned whale oil lamps almost overnight. By 1860, at least 30 kerosene plants were in production in the United States, and whale oil was ultimately driven off the market. When sperm oil dropped to 40 cents a gallon in 1895, due to lack of demand, refined petroleum, which was very much in demand, sold for less than 7 cents a gallon.
If petroleum products, such as kerosene and machine oil, had not appeared in the 1850s as alternatives to whale oil, many species of whales would have disappeared long ago. Clearly, the expanding population and economy of the 1800s, together with the development of more deadly hunting tools, would have driven the whaling industry to even greater heights than the banner year of 1856. The September 3, 1860 edition of the "California Fireside Journal" sums up the attitude of the times:
"Had it not been for the discovery of Coal Oil, the race of whales would soon have become extinct. It is estimated that ten years would have used up the whole family".