Francesco Gerali

Harsh oil: Finding petroleum in early twentieth century Western Australia

Abstract Before becoming a science, an art or a form of investment, oil prospecting needed the mental vision of the discoverers of new oil fields in unexplored areas. According to Pratt, the minds of such men made the discovery of new wells possible, mostly in terrains that were not considered favourable such as in Australia. This paper is the initial outcome of an investigation into the first oil explorations in the SW of Australia in the early twentieth century. Following a review of the relevant literature, the paper provides an overview of the early global development of the oil industry, exploring expectations of oil resources in Australia in the context of international oil developments. This provides the background to an analysis of early oil exploration in Western Australia (WA), based on analysis of contemporary geological literature, unpublished government documents and newspaper reports. The result is not the tale of an epic quest for oil in Australia, but rather a story of sceptical scientists, visionary investors and a government that saw oil as an asset that would speed up Australias transition from a British colony into an independent political and economic power.

Understanding and finding oil over the centuries: The case of the Wallachian Petroleum Company in Romania

About four centuries passed between the first appearance of pamphlets in which the medical uses of petroleum were discussed (for example, the Tegernsee (southern Bavaria, 1430), Geneva (Swiss Confederacy, 1480), Nurnberg (northern Bavaria, 1500), and the Antwerp (Duchy of Brabant, today Flanders, 1540–1550) pamphlets), and Michael Faradays discovery in 1825 of the chemical composition of benzene derived from bituminous oil as a compound of carbon and hydrogen. During this long time span, studies of oil, carried out between alchemy and chemistry, benefited from rapid advances and brilliant insights, much as they had moments of stagnation, and disappointing regressions. In 1855 the chemist Benjamin Silliman Jr., of Yale University, proved that crude oil could be decomposed through a process of fractional distillation into a range of fuels and lubricants cheaper than the oils, greases and waxes rendered by animal fats and vegetal matter (Silliman 1855; Forbes 1948 Forbes 1958). In the course of the early 18...

Gushers, science and luck: Everette Lee DeGolyer and the Mexican oil upsurge, 1909–19

Abstract Despite the political controversies surrounding it, in Mexico as in other countries, oil exploration and production between 1900 and 1920 was primarily an economic activity developed by scientists, technologists, skilled workers and entrepreneurs. The Mexican oil fields were both drilling sites and ‘smithies of ideas’ where new cadres of oil professionals were producing fresh knowledge on the oil-bearing formations. Along with Mexican and British professionals, young US geologists with more books in their hands than oil on their shoes emerged and managed, in spite of having little experience, to push Mexico in less than one decade to the top-three list of petroleum-exporting countries. This article aims to present the business and scientific activities of one of the most relevant individuals among them, Everette Lee DeGolyer, assessing his contribution to petroleum exploitation and oil geology in Mexico.