Energy · 1856

Oil refinery

Lukasiewicz opens a plant to distill crude oil into lamp fuel.

Ignacy Lukasiewicz's refinery at Ulaszowice in Poland, opened in 1856, is among the first. Distillation separated crude into kerosene, lubricants and a then-waste fraction, gasoline, which would later fuel cars.

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 2

Kerosene 1846
Distillation 100

What it led to 2

Oil drilling 1859
Thermal cracking 1913

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

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