How did the mideast oil drama start?

This has been one of my large curiosities for quite a bit of time. It hasn't helped that phrases such as 'oil wasn't discovered in Saudi Arabia until 1927' are often found. I took that literally until I started learning about the details of T.E. Lawrence's work during WWI. During WWI, Britain had access to oil (from Persia - in the Zagros Mountains and other locations). Russia had a supply from the Baku
fields.  Germany lost their supply in Romania. Some say this led to the war being unsustainable for Germany and allies. And it would seem Britain had a nearly desperate interest in expanding their influence in Middle Eastern lands must have had more to do with their own needs than with other interests. As WWI was ending, oil exploration and exploitation began in earnest.

This is shown in the borders they developed with France, which has led to such great distress today (summer and fall of 2015) in so many parts of the Middle East - after all they created new dynasties in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel / Palestine, and Jordan and gave them to the sons of one small, not terribly strong, dynasty from along the western shore of today's Saudi Arabia and who were a decade or so later kicked out of their homeland by the Sauds.) 

OK - back to the oil discovery and extraction story. This blog  provides an excellent overview which there's no need to repeat here. The first extraction in the Middle East, according to Western opinion, was 1908. And, digging a bit further, Lo and Behold, brings us to kerosene ---- the Persians are known to have been refining it since the 9th century. Since their crude product was crystal clear (think about how black petroleum stuff is) it is clear crude methods must have existed for centuries before (did you see what I did there ----  using 'clear' and 'crude' with two different meanings?) And kerosene is one of the connecting ideas from ancient to modern times.

But two points I find fascinating and for me essential pieces of current 'dramas' around exploiting these resources: oil weeps and the discovery of oil in the US. Oil Weeps? A key part of the story it turns out. (Guess growing up during the original airing dates of the Beverly Hill Billies gave me the impression that they (the weeps) were the fabrication of TV writers. Damnation, was I wrong about that. So, La Brea (Los Angeles) is fun and an accessible and famous oil weep.

Back to 1927 in Saudi Arabia - turns out the first concession for petroleum extraction was created then. Obtained by (can you guess?) Great Britain. Currently, this brief History of the Oil Industry in Saudi Arabia contains a useful overview of the period from 1902 through the 1970s (Oil Embargo). 



Jumping to the USA  --- let's get to know about salt wells and Samuel Kier of Pennsylvania. He dug deep holes to extract salt water (among other enterprises) - for commercial purposes. Eventually his brine water became polluted with petroleum. Which he initially disposed of in a convenient canal. When it caught fire - Eureka! BUT, wait for it, his initial efforts at bottling the stuff didn't work out  - he was selling it generally unprocessed as a health elixir. As the price of whale oil rose, he worked out how to make kerosene. So, he built America's first oil refinery.

And there's someone else, whom you may recall from a paragraph or two in your American Social Studies texts. George Bissel is titled the father of the US oil industry. He observed the oil seep, spotted the derricks nearby for extracting salt water, and decided to use them for oil, with the idea of being used to produce kerosene. Will be checking the dates, as this is so similar to what Sam Kier did. And Edwin Drake is often credited with nearly the same discovery. According to Wikipedia, Drake managed the first drill to stike oil, and his persistance and inventiveness allowed them to drill in difficult soil conditions to reach the oil. (He dealt with caving in sides and getting through bedrock.)

The American Chemical Society summarized this oil production work around Pittsburgh and Titusville Pennsylvania in The Development of the Pennsylvania Oil Industry (which is one of the ways J.D. Rockerfeller built his fortune). They don't mention Bissel, who was mentioned in those textbooks.

Interesting perspective
"One Hundred Years of Middle Eastern Oil

Prof. E. Roger Owen

Oil was found at Masjed Soleyman in southwestern Iran on May 26, 1908, and three years later was piped down to a newly built refinery at Abadan on the Iranian side of the Shatt al-rab, not many miles below Basra.

Its global importance was immediately recognized, not just by the Admiralty in London,looking for new sources of supply for its oil-fired battleships,but in other European capitals as well—leading to a brief British-German-Turkish skirmish for control of the pipeline at the start of World War I.

Oil also played an important role in the struggle after the war over the future of the Ottoman province of Mosul, where a large oil field was eventually discovered in 1927 at Baba Gargur near Kirkuk in the new, British-mandated Iraq. Oil was next found in the Persian Gulf, beginning with Bahrain in 1931; there were

subsequent discoveries in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Trucial States (Abu Dhabi and Dubai), and Oman. By 1960 the smaller Gulf states were producing 15 percent of the world’s oil, with another 10 percent or so coming from Iraq and Iran.

By 1970 this had risen to 30 percent. 

The story of the discovery, exploitation, and importance of Middle Eastern oil has been told in many different ways, and from many different points of view.For some it has been a source of Western triumphalism—as in the case of the Aramco story, in which brave Texas “pioneers” conquer the world’s last oil

frontier.

For others, like the Arab novelist Abd al-Rahman Munif, it is a tale of woe, as the lives of nomadic people are disrupted by the appearance of prisons and exploitative local officials.

For still others, it amounts to a local success story, wherein the embryonic nation-states of the Gulf learn to challenge Western oil companies in such a way as to force them both to pay more for the oil and, beginning with Iran in 1951, to surrender control over this vital national asset."