CARIBBEAN ENERGY INFORMATION SYSTEM (CEIS) AUGUST 2012 ISSUE World’s most important energy source. Although there is controversy regarding whether it was the U.S.A. or Canada that first discovered oil in North America, it is believed that the first Oil producing well was discovered in Canada in 1851. This would suggest that Canada was actually the first country that discovered Crude Oil in that Continent.
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ncient history tells us that Oil was used over 200 million years ago. The Greeks used it to fight wars and it has been said that oil was used to line the basket that Moses was placed in. Since then, this very precious commodity has been the cause of many human ills including wars and political disputes. Many nations have built armies to protect their claim once discovered. The Small Island States of the Caribbean already having little power in comparison to the rest of the world and who are predominantly net importers of the precious “Black Gold” are in no position to defend their claim against the Oil giants should there be large discoveries of this precious commodity in the Region. However, finding large resources would likely see the Caribbean countries
making a paradigm shift from being net importers to net exporters. In this issue of the CEIS Petroleum Update we will seek to provide a brief history of Oil discoveries and a summary update on the happenings in the Caribbean as the search increases for new resources of Oil in the Region. History of Oil discoveries in Major Oil Producing Countries
Large discoveries in the Middle East were first reported in Iran (formerly Persia) in 1872. Exploratory wells were first drilled in Mexico in 1869, but oil was not discovered until 1901. Venezuela the fifth largest oil exporting country in the World has the largest reserves of heavy crude oil with the first oil producing well being discovered by Caribbean Petroleum on April 15, 1914. Bahrain a small island state near Iran discovered oil in 1932 followed by its neighbour Saudi Arabia one of the World’s largest Oil Producing country which discovered the precious resource in 1938. China discovered their vast resource in the 1950’s. However, China due to its increasing population stopped exports in 1993.
It has been recorded that Oil was first discovered in the United States America continued on page 2/ (USA) in 1859. At the beginCONTACT US ning of the 20th century it supplied only 4% of the Caribbean Energy Information System world’s energy; now it is the
CARIBBEAN PETROLEUM UPDATE
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is a monthly Bulletin which highlights petroleum issues affecting or relevant to the Caribbean, international developments that may affect the region’s way of life and movements in oil prices and retail prices for fuel regionally.