Drake, Colonel Edwin

The United States became the world s first producer of deep crude oil from an oil well when in 1859 Colonel Edwin Drake successfully used a pipe drilled into the ground to obtain oil. From then until about 1970, the United States was virtually energy-independent with only some oil and gas imports from Mexico and Canada. Wliile U.S. reserves of coal, natural gas and uranium continue to be large enough to supply internal demand with enough left over to export, the supply of oil took a sharp turn downward. After 1970, even while U.S. demand continued to increase at a steep 6.5 percent per year, the supply of U.S. oil began to decline, necessitating sharp increases in U.S. oil imports. 

Fig. 11. Colonel Edwin Drake (right) and Peter Wilson, a druggist who endorsed a 500 bank loan for Drake, confer in front of the world s first commercial oil well near Titusville. Pennsylvania. Initially. Drake rigged a large wheel powered by steam to raise and lower a cable and iron bit. Later connected to a crude drill pipe and pump, this well produced about 35 barrels a day. (ca. 1861)...

In North America, Colonel Edwin H. Drake drilled a well to about 19 m (60 ft) in depth at Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859, where he struck oil. This well initially produced about 20 barrels/day. Some historical accounts of the development of the North American petroleum industry credit this event as the first crude oil production from a well [5]. More comprehensive accounts also describe the activity of James M. Williams in Canada at about the same time. 

Colonel Edwin L. Drake adapts an old steam engine to fit a drill and begins drilling for oil near Titusville, Pennsylvania. 

Offshore drilling began in 1897, just 38 years after Colonel Edwin Drake drilled the first well in 1859. H.L. Williams is credited with drilling a well off a wooden pier in the Santa Barbara Channel in California. He used the pier... 

Colonel Edwin L. Drake triggers the Pennsylvania oil boom by drilling a well near Titusville, Pennsylvania that was 69-feet deep and produced 35 barrels-per-day. 

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