PETROLEUM
commercial oil well is a difficult one to answer. Edwin Drake's 1859 well near Titusville,
Pennsylvania, is popularly considered the first modern well. Drake's well is probably
singled out because it was drilled, not dug; because it used a steam engine; because
there was a company associated with it; and because it touched off a major boom.
However, there was considerable activity before Drake in various parts of the world in
the mid-19th century. A group directed by Major Alexeyev of the Bakinskii Corps of
Mining Engineers hand-drilled a well in the Baku region in 1848. There were engine-
drilled wells in West Virginia in the same year as Drake's well. An early commercial well
was hand dug in Poland in 1853, and another in nearby Romania in 1857. At around the
same time the world's first, small, oil refinery was opened at Jasło in Poland, with a
larger one opened at Ploiești in Romania shortly after. Romania is the first country in the
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