ABSTRACT
Oil and gas have been known since antiquity because petroleum products were found naturally on the earth’s surface. There are several references in the Bible related to asphalt and bitumen. Romans used oil for lighting and heating the thermae of Constantinople. Persians and American Indians for the extraction of petroleum, used blankets that were soaked in shallow pools of water and oil and then squeezed. In China and Japan, even before the Christian era, extraction was carried out with artificial wells lined with wood or masonry. Transport was carried out with buckets, but it seems that already in 250 BC, the Chinese used flammable gas as fuel, transported with bamboo poles, making them the first pipelines. In the same period, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, it seems that the Incas distilled oil in large earthen pots heated by the sunlight. In 1859, Drake began the modern age of oil extraction wells by using cast iron pipes [1-3].
