Time-Out

Who is the Father of Petroleum Industry ?

Some day i came across wondering about who would be the father of petroleum industry/oil field industry, while i was reading for my academic subject : Petroleum Refinery Engineering. I have had gone through the phase in my school life (particularly in class 10) in which i had an habit of searching about who is the father of biology, father of mathematics...and all that stuff. But, it was a long back then and i had never ever shown my interest to gave a thought on the fact about who is the father of oilfield, the field in which i have opted my career. It's a pretty wayward though, but still its a true fact ! So, i instantly dropped all the "refinery stuff" and went on googling for my answer. And however i came across many articles (as usual). But, this search went down a "bizarre search", because i found out that oilfield is having more than one father and there is a furphy regarding who is the father of petroleum industry on internet. I don't blame though since petroleum is the widest field and perhaps the only field which is coalescence of many technical and engineering branch. So, it is very well understood that the development of oil field industry came through the great scientist from their respective branches. But still, in the end of the day they all should have come to were they all belong because oil field is an independent branch and it should sum up to only one person who initiated the development or deserved the most among all the odds. Then i went on to find the dictionary meaning of the "father" in which it says : the founder of the family. So, i was quite right in my way.

Yeah, i forgot to tell you that i came across 3 names : Dr. Abraham Gesner, Anthony F. Lucas and Col. Edwin Drake. Dr. Abraham was clearly an infamous personality as in my entire under-graduate years i have never heard about him. One thing about him raised my eyebrows- he was a geologist, physician, naturalist and scholar of chemistry. And the most eye-catching thing was - he was a self taught man. But financially his family was poor and when Gesner built up debts from his attempts at experimental scientific farming, his father-in-law, the naturalist, Dr Isaac Webster,offered to help him out of his financial difficulty if he would take up medicine. So, he became a student of medicine in his private hospital. He began his medical practice in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia and later practised in the village of Parrsboro. During this time, he continued his energetic study and writings about the geology of the Maritime Provinces of Canada. In 1836, he published 'Remarks on the Geology and Mineralogy of Nova Scotia' which stimulated the - famous geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, to visit the province of 1842 with Gesner as his guide. Gesner published many reports on the geology of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. His interests were diverse. He invented an electrical dynamo and an apparatus for winding insulation around electrical wire. He constructed an electrical motor driven by voltaic battery and experimented on numerous other scientific ideas. His greatest contribution, however, was the discovery of kerosene in 1846 when he extracted oil from the 'albertite' of New Brunswick. During his experiments, Dr Gesner produced a clear, oily liquid which proved to have better illuminating properties than the gases already in use. He first called it keroselain from two Greek words meaning wax and oil and later contracted it to kerosene'. suitable for use as fertilizer. He first formed a company in Halifax, Nova Scotia to produce kerosene. In 1853, he moved to New York, and he set up two large factories for the commercial manufacture of illuminating oil or kerosene. He took out patent rights and sold them to the New York Kerosene Company. This company was  later overshadowed by the discovery of large oil fields in the back-country of Pennsylvania when Col. Edwin Drake discovered oil in a shallow well at Titusville, Pennsylvania. His patent rights were challenged in the courts and he lost in very biased judgements against him that ruled that albertite was coal and his challengers had the licenses to 'mine coal and its minerals'. He returned to Halifax to take the Chair of Natural History at Dalhousie University. He died before he could take up the Chair, having received none of the financial rewards of his invention". He was recognized as an outstanding geologist and scientist and was a Fellow of the Royal Geological Society of London.

Now, moving forward to another name : Anthony F. Lucas. He was a mechanical engineer. He's famously known for drilling an oil well near Beaumont, Texas that became known as Spindletop, which led to the widespread exploitation of oil and the start of the petroleum age. A number of Lucas inventions and scientific or technical knowledge were used in early oil exploration and extraction, with most still being employed.
Some are:
[1] overhead method of mining in salt mines
[2] surface exploration for underground mineral deposits
[3] application of steam-driven, hydraulic-rotary drilling rig and of mud in oil well drilling
[4] construction and application of back pressure valve
[5] construction of blowout preventers
[6] designing of well logs
[7] Invention of the Christmas tree oil well
(Plenty isn't it !)
well, In 1936, the American Institute for Geological and Metallurgical Investigations founded the "Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal prize" for development in the area of oil exploration. Later on SPE has also started giving "Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal prize" for a distinguished achievement in the identification and development of new technology and concepts that will enhance the process of finding or producing petroleum.

And last but not the least : Col. Edwin Drake. He was an American oil driller, popularly credited with being the first to drill for oil in the United States. Well, i dont want any speculations any more on the fact about who is the father of petroleum industry but what i do want is who should be called the father of the oil industry. I dont want to give my vote on these debate as i am no where near to judge these great men. I want all the other pioneers and SPE officials to step forward and clear all the specualtions and furphy on the internet.