Yes, petrol (or gasoline as it is known in the US) was not only a waste product, it was an unprofitable nuisance.

During the mid to late 1800s industrializing countries (such as America) were throwing crude (raw unprocessed) oil into rivers.

In the 1850s, crude oil was tossed into the Kanawha River (West Virginia, USA). Then up until about 1880, petrol (its lighter by-product) was dumped into the Cuyahoga River (Ohio, US).

This all seems bizarre now in an age when crude oil has reached nearly USD150 per barrel. But there it is...oil and petrol used to be tossed out. They had no value. They were waste products.

The peculiar story of oil, during the mid to late 1800s, has quite a lot to do with salt, whales and electric lights.

Crude oil is a greasy, thick, dark liquid which often naturally seeps out of the ground or oceans floors.

The ancient Mesopotamians, Persians and Chinese used it to illuminate fortresses, waterproof boats, fight wars and heat kilns. Nineteenth century industrializing countries however were quite ignorant of its potential.

The massive popular use of oil (or black gold) did not begin until the mid 1800s.

It was the search for salt, during the 1850s, which helped give birth to the oil industry of today.

In an age where there were no refrigerators, salt was used to preserve foods and was therefore valuable. Salt was sometimes mined out of brine wells. There the salt was found mixed with a black, murky substance. This dark, thick, slimey goo which oozed out of the salt mines was a nuisance. It was called crude oil.

Miners either offloaded this oil to snake oil salesman or dumped it. The travelling salesman sold it as a cure for anything from broken bones to arthritis.

Then in 1854, the Canadian Abraham Gesner developed kerosene which could be used for oil lamps.

Kerosene heralded in the popular use of crude oil products. It was made from the heat separation or distillation of crude oil.

Kerosene provided a cheaper alternative to whale oil for lighting. During the mid 1800s huge numbers of whales were killed to provide lighting and lubrication oil.

The demand for whale oil was so high that whales were nearly reduced to extinction. Whaling ships had to remain longer and longer at sea because it was harder to find whales.

The decrease in whale numbers saw whale oil prices increase. By the mid 1800s whale oil was worth about USD1.77 a gallon, whereas kerosene ( gained without the expense of costly ships in hazardous seas) was less than a third of the price. And so kerosene became the preferred oil for lighting.

The cheaper supply of kerosene caused lighting sales to increase. More and more people could afford to stay awake and work at night. And with that came the Oil Boom of the mid 1800s and the entry of the legendary John D Rockefellow, America's first oil tycoon and the founder of Standard Oil (or ESSO).

Rockefeller (born in 1839) was primarily a refiner, transporter and marketer of oil, rather than a miner of oil. The son of a door to door salesman (who dropped his young son on the ground and then advised him to trust no one) Rockefeller was famously frugal. He disliked anything being thrown out and tried to find a use for everything.

By 1863 at the age of 24 he was the partner in a small oil refinery.

During the 1860s and 1870s, refineries along Ohio's Cuyahoga River found their storage was glutted with a lighter more flammable crude oil product, they called gasoline.

"Before the automobile, nobody knew what to do with the light fraction of crude oil known as gasoline, and many refiners, under cover of dark, let the waste product run into the river. The noxious runoff made the Cuyahoga River so flammable that if steamboat captains shovelled glowing coals overboard, the water erupted in flames." Titan: The Life of John D Rockefeller, Ron Chernow, Random House, 1998

Unlike his competitors Rockefeller reduced his waste by using the light flammable oil by-product, Naptha. This he used to power his refineries.

_{Standard Oil Refinery Cleveland, Ohio 1870. Photo Courtesy US Department of Justice}

His avoidance of waste saw his buinesses grow. By 1870 he was the biggest shareholder in the business and had named the company Standard Oil.

Over the next few years he further developed the oil market. Refined oil was used to make chewing gum, paints, asphalt and lubricant so that by 1879 Rockefeller's Standard Oil controlled about ninety percent of the US refining business. He was forty years old.

At the same time the oil industry was hit hard by the kerosene price collapse. The electric light bulb had been invented and was being sold by 1880. Therefore the need for kerosene crashed.

But another vehicle of opportunity had just arrived...the automobile. Rockefeller climbed into this and drove off in search of new fortunes.

Visit Moorland School (for explanation of oil refining process).

Energy for the 21st Century: A Comprehensive Guide to Conventional and Alternative Sources . Roy L. Nersesian, M.E. Sharpe Inc.

_{Standard Oil Refinery No. 1, (1899). Photo courtesy Global Marshall Plan US Image}