| dc.description.abstract | The history of petroleum from 1859 up to about 1960 is inseparable from that of the big oil companies which formed and grew rapidly in order to seek, produce, transform, transport and sell this precious liquid. The first company to become very large in the oil sector belonged to John D. Rockefeller. He initially headed up a wholesale business, one of whose products was petroleum, and built the first refinery in Pennsylvania, then a second, progressively extending his activities to cover the entire range of activities of the burgeoning petroleum industry. He acted according to a number of simple but effective principles: control the various links in the petroleum chain (storage, refining, transport, distribution infrastructure) and ensure that they operate at minimum cost. Rockefeller eschewed production, which he considered anarchical, preferring to buy in his crude, which was then available on the market at a very competitive price. | en_US |
