ABSTRACT
The credit of the rst commercially viable oil well goes to Edwin Drake, the former railroad conductor who struck oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859. The discovery spawned the modern oil industry and paved the way for widespread oil and gas exploration that continues today. At the time, the primary demand for oil was kerosene used in lamps, which served as a cheap alternative to whale oil. Early reneries were only concerned with production of kerosene from crude oil and often discarded the lighter constituents, such as gasoline, as a waste. As demand for gasoline grew at the turn of the century along with the production of the internal combustion engine and automobiles, so did the need for large-scale rening. Standard Oil of New Jersey provided this service. With around 90% of the rening market share in the United States, Standard Oil was the main supplier of rened oil products. This remained the case until May of 1911, when the Sherman Antitrust Act split Standard Oil into 33 separate entities. A Standard Oil Company exists today, but it is a shadow of its former self and many companies hold rights to the name in different regions of the country. Nearly every major oil and gas rener and explorer in the United States can trace their lineage back to Standard Oil (Cornell University Law School 2015).
