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Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil is a type of sweet crude oil (sweet crude oil), found primarily in the Appalachian basin in the Marcellus Formation in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and takes its name for the state of Pennsylvania, where it was first extracted in 1859 from the Drake Well. [1]
The area's Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil has superior qualities and is free of asphaltic constituents, contains only trace amounts of sulfur and nitrogen, and has excellent characteristics for refining into lubricants. The success of drilling for oil at this well led to "an international search for petroleum, and in many ways eventually changed the way we live." [1] There is archaeological evidence that Native Americans harvested "the oil for medicinal purposes by digging small pits around active seeps and lining them with wood" at least as far back as 1410 AD. [1] European settlers skimmed the "oil from the seeps and using the petroleum as a source of lamp fuel and machinery lubrication." [1]
Pennsylvania grade crude oil can be broken down into gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, gas oil, wax distillate, cylinder stock (or bottoms) and other refined products such as white oil and paraffin. Pennsylvania grade crude oil when seen in reflected sunlight has a green color and under ultraviolet light looks fluorescent.
Pennsylvania grade crude oil is thermally stable and has a high viscosity index. It is generally free of asphalt and has only trace amounts of sulfur and nitrogen. It is also high in paraffin and other waxes making it highly desirable for refinement into petroleum lubricants such as motor oil. Its products are also valuable for use in certain hydraulic applications. By-products are commonly found in consumer goods such as cosmetics, and topical ointments.
Products refined from this type of oil are particularly prized as lubricants and many oil companies prominently display the fact that they use Pennsylvania Grade crude oil in their products.
Bradford, Pennsylvania is major center for the refining of Pennsylvania grade crude oil.
Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil was first extracted from the Drake Well, which was drilled by Edwin Drake in "the middle of quiet farm country in northwestern Pennsylvania" in 1859. It was the "first successful oil well that was drilled for the sole purpose of finding oil." [1] His success led to "an international search for petroleum, and in many ways eventually changed the way we live." [1]
With the success of the first drilled well, in the quiet farming region around Oil Creek towns like Bradford were created and the area was rapidly transformed into the center of the Pennsylvania oil rush in the late 19th century, similar to the growth of gold rush towns of the Wild West. [1] The original Drake Well burned to the ground only a few months after it was built and a second well was erected. In the late nineteenth century, early developers had no geological knowledge of the geological formation and wells were drilled at random with derricks built very close together. "There were frequent fires that raged out of control." [1] Until the East Texas oil boom the oil Regions in Pennsylvania were responsible for fifty percent of the world's oil production. [1]
The community of Bradford emerged as a wild oil boom town in the Pennsylvania oil rush in the late 19th century. In 1881, Joseph Newton Pew (1848–1912), founder of Sun Oil Company (now Sunoco) developed the Keystone Gas Company [2] which used the by-products of oil, such as natural gas, to provide heat and light for By 1889 Newton's Keystone Gas Company was delivering gas to Pittsburgh.
Bradford is still a major center for the refining of Pennsylvania grade crude oil.
The history of the petroleum industry in the United States goes back to the early 19th century, although the indigenous peoples, like many ancient societies, have used petroleum seeps since prehistoric times; where found, these seeps signaled the growth of the industry from the earliest discoveries to the more recent.
Kerosene, or paraffin, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from κηρός (kērós) meaning "wax", and was registered as a trademark by Nova Scotia geologist and inventor Abraham Gesner in 1854 before evolving into a generic trademark. It is sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage.
Petroleum or crude oil, also referred to as simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil.
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Edwin Laurentine Drake, also known as Colonel Drake, was an American businessman and the first American to successfully drill for oil.
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Petroleum geochemistry is a branch of geochemistry which deals specifically with petroleum and its origin, generation, and accumulation, as well as its extraction, refinement, and use. Petroleum, also known as crude oil, is a solid, liquid, and/or gaesous mix of hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons are from the burial and metamorphosis of organic matter from millions of years ago; the organic matter is from marine animals, plants, and algae. Petroleum is extracted from the Earth, refined, and used as an energy source.
The oil and gas industry is usually divided into three major sectors: upstream, midstream, and downstream. The downstream sector is the refining of petroleum crude oil and the processing and purifying of raw natural gas, as well as the marketing and distribution of products derived from crude oil and natural gas. The downstream sector reaches consumers through products such as gasoline or petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil, heating oil, fuel oils, lubricants, waxes, asphalt, natural gas, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as well as naphtha and hundreds of petrochemicals.
Calumet Specialty Products Partners, L.P. is a publicly traded U.S.-based company that was incorporated in 1919. It specializes in the manufacture of lubricating oils, solvents, waxes, packaged and synthetic specialty products, fuels and fuel-related products. The company operates 12 production, blending, and packaging facilities across North America. This includes locations in Princeton, Cotton Valley, and Shreveport, Louisiana; Burnham, Illinois; Dickinson, Texas; Muncie, Indiana; Karns City, Pennsylvania; and Great Falls, Montana. Calumet's specialized hydrocarbon products are distributed around the world to approximately 2,700 global customers.
Heavy crude oil is highly viscous oil that cannot easily flow from production wells under normal reservoir conditions.
A petroleum seep is a place where natural liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons escape to the Earth's atmosphere and surface, normally under low pressure or flow. Seeps generally occur above either terrestrial or offshore petroleum accumulation structures. The hydrocarbons may escape along geological layers, or across them through fractures and fissures in the rock, or directly from an outcrop of oil-bearing rock.
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While the local use of oil goes back many centuries, the modern petroleum industry along with its outputs and modern applications are of a recent origin. Petroleum's status as a key component of politics, society, and technology has its roots in the coal and kerosene industry of the late 19th century. One of the earliest instances of this is the refining of paraffin from crude oil. Abraham Gesner developed a process to refine a liquid fuel from coal, bitumen and oil shale; it burned more cleanly and was cheaper than whale oil. James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage when he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a thicker oil suitable for lubricating machinery. The world's first refineries and modern oil wells were established in the mid-19th century. While petroleum industries developed in several countries during the nineteenth century, the two giants were the United States and the Russian Empire, specifically that part of it that today forms the territory of independent Azerbaijan. Together, these two countries produced 97% of the world's oil over the course of the nineteenth century.
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The oil rush in America started in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in the Oil Creek Valley when Edwin L. Drake struck "rock oil" there in 1859. Titusville and other towns on the shores of Oil Creek expanded rapidly as oil wells and refineries shot up across the region. Oil quickly became one of the most valuable commodities in the United States and railroads expanded into Western Pennsylvania to ship petroleum to the rest of the country.
Joseph Newton Pew was the founder of Sun Oil Company and a prominent philanthropist.
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Luther Atwood was an American chemist. He is known for creating new chemical products from the distillation of coal and petroleum.