The History of the Oil and Gas Industry
The chemical structures of oil and natural gas have been around for millions of years now. The farthest reaches of our recorded history, memory and archaeology have led us down a road where oil and gas in some form or another has been used since the beginning of our existence.
The industry began millennia ago when cavemen learned to harness pitch so that their torches would not go out in damp areas, such as cliffs near waterfalls. They used these improved forms of torches to drive the giant animals of that era over cliffs for an easy kill.
Without the pitch covered torch these people would never have been able to do that in wet climates. The moisture would slowly kill a normal flame and they would be left helpless before the massive beasts they hunted.
Traveling forward in time a few thousand years, tar and pitch were used as building components for walls and homes in ancient Babylonia. The tower of Babylon was reputed to have been constructed using an early form of asphalt.
In Persia it was renowned as a medicinal tool for the upper class, as well as the lighting properties that could be produced at the time. This usage would spread all over the world into the more affluent countries.
Once again, travel forward in time, when the early Greeks used a form of pitch to create a devastating tool of war known as Greek fire. They managed to stave off many potential invasions at sea by using their creation to destroy enemy ships on the water.
Greek fire was useful in this endeavor because of the fact that water only spread the fire. Water, as people in he modern era know all too well, cannot be used to stop an oil or grease fire.
The oil and gas industry has been alive and well ever since. At the present time it is used in ways no ancient human being would ever have thought.
The human race uses the industry today in many of the old ways. We heat our homes, build them and power our engines of war, all in different methods but in the same pattern as before.
Currently, we utilize ever changing chemical formulas to try and find less harmful and environmentally-friendly methodologies for the usage of this natural wonder fuel. In the last two decades alone, thousands of different kinds of plastic that can bio-degrade have come along.
We have fuels and engines built around them that give off less toxic emissions than before. We are to change from time tested tactics. However, we are doing so.
Even today scientists are coming up with innovative ways of creating new sources of oil from bacterial strains. This is meant to stave off the possibility that one day, the world's oil supplies may be gone entirely.
Looking into the future of our world oil and gas will be part of our lives just as it always has been -- the friend that warmed our homes and kept us safe from human and animal alike.
Without this industry, in all its time-tested glory, the human race might not have survived.
