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World's First Oil Well

Location: Bibi-Heybat, Baku, Azerbaijan
Date: 1848
Category:
Creator(s): Aleveev, Major

 

On July 14, 1848 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Major Alekseev supervised the completion of a 20+ meter well, reaching a small pocket of crude oil, thus establishing the world’s very first oil well. The process used was an archaic technique known as cable-tool drilling, employed for hundreds of years in ancient China. Major Alekseev acted under the instruction of governor-general Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov, who in a memo wrote:

 

“I hereby authorize oil exploration in the Bibi-Eybat sector, Baku district, Caspian Sea by means of earth drills and allocate 1,000 roubles for this purpose.”

 

Just over a decade later, Edwin Drake finished work on the first oil well on American soil, in 1859 in Pennsylvania.

Tags: Era: 1840-1849
Innovation designated by:
Workers digging an oil well by hand at Bibi-Eibat (Azerbaijan).
Wikipedia
Workers digging an oil well by hand at Bibi-Eibat (Azerbaijan).
Address:
Bibi-Heybat, Baku, Azerbaijan

40.3085182, 49.8205048

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