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markets. Nearly 200 small refineries operated in the suburbs of
Baku by 1884. As a side effect of these early developments, the
Apsheron Peninsula emerged as the world's "oldest legacy of oil
pollution and environmental negligence." In 1878, Ludvig Nobel
and his Branobel company "revolutionized oil transport" by
commissioning the first oil tanker and launching it on the Caspian
Sea.
The first modern oil refineries were built by Ignacy
Łukasiewicz near Jasło (then in the dependent Kingdom of Galicia
and Lodomeria in Central European Galicia), Poland from 1854–
56. These were initially small as demand for refined fuel was
limited. The refined products were used in artificial asphalt,
machine oil and lubricants, in addition to Łukasiewicz's kerosene
lamp. As kerosene lamps gained popularity, the refining industry
grew in the area.
The first commercial oil well in Canada became
operational in 1858 at Oil Springs, Ontario (then Canada West).
Businessman James Miller Williams dug several wells between
1855 and 1858 before discovering a rich reserve of oil four metres
below ground. Williams extracted 1.5 million litres of crude oil by
1860, refining much of it into kerosene lamp oil. Some historians
challenge Canada’s claim to North America’s first oil field,
arguing that Pennsylvania’s famous Drake well was the
continent’s first. But there is evidence to support Williams, not
least of which is that the Drake well did not come into production
until August 28, 1859. The controversial point might be that
Williams found oil above bedrock while Edwin Drake’s well
located oil within a bedrock reservoir. The discovery at Oil
Springs touched off an oil boom which brought hundreds of
speculators and workers to the area. The first gusher erupted on
January 16, 1862, when local oil man John Shaw struck oil at 158
feet (48 m). For a week the oil gushed unchecked at levels reported
as high as 3,000 barrels per day.
The first modern oil drilling in the United States began in
West Virginia and Pennsylvania in the 1850s. Edwin Drake's 1859
well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, is typically considered the first
true modern oil well, and touched off a major boom. In the first

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