Energy · 1859

Oil drilling

Drake's steam-driven drill strikes oil at 21 m in Pennsylvania.

Edwin Drake's well at Titusville in 1859 used a steam engine and drive pipe to reach oil, starting the first oil boom. Oil became the world's largest energy source by the 1960s and still supplies about 30% of primary energy.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 3

Oil refinery 1856
High-pressure steam engine 1800
Sichuan gas wells 100 BCE

What it led to 6

Internal combustion engine 1876
Automobile 1886
Spindletop gusher 1901
Hydraulic fracturing 1947
Liquefied natural gas shipping 1959
Enhanced geothermal at scale ~2034

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Crude oil price since 1861 Latest: 435 current US$ per m3 (2025) Source: Our World in Data

World primary energy by source Latest: 178k TWh (2025) Source: Our World in Data

Fossil fuel consumption Latest: 144k TWh (2025) Source: Our World in Data