Oil Becomes the World's Fuel

In 1859 Edwin Drake drilled a successful oil well at Titusville, Pennsylvania, launching the modern petroleum industry. At first, oil was valued mainly for kerosene, which replaced whale oil and candles for lighting. John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, founded in 1870, came to control most US refining before the Supreme Court ordered it broken up in 1911. As electric light reduced demand for kerosene, cars and later aircraft created new demand for petrol.

Navies switched from coal to oil, which was easier to load and gave faster ships; before the First World War Britain's Royal Navy built oil-fired battleships and its government took a stake in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1914. Oil's energy density and portability powered twentieth-century transport and chemicals. It also made access to oil a strategic concern, shaped relations with producing regions and contributed significantly to air pollution and carbon emissions.