Petroleum and Heavy Oil Refining

The first oil wells were drilled in China in the fourth century, or perhaps earlier. The wells, as deep as 243 m, were drilled using bits attached to bamboo poles. The oil was burned to produce heat needed in the production of salt from brine evaporation. By the tenth century, extensive bamboo pipelines connected oil wells with salt springs. Ancient Persian tablets also indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper echelons of their society. 

In the eighth centuiy, the streets of the newly constructed Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from easily accessible petroleum from natural fields in the region. 

In the ninth century, oil fields were exploited to produce naphtha in Baku, Azerbaijan. These fields, described by the geographer Masudi in the tenth century, had increased output to hundreds of shiploads in the thirteenth century as described by Marco Polo. 

The Middle East produces 32% of the world s oil (Table 1.3), but more importantly it has 64% of the total proven oil reserves in the world (Table 1.4). Also, 

Middle Latin Eastern North Asia and Africa Western 

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