How Big Oil conquered the World.

 In a move that would transform the American economy, Rockefeller set out to replace a world of independent oilmen with a giant company controlled by him. In 1870, begging bankers for more loans, he formed Standard Oil of Ohio. The next year, he quietly put what he called “our plan” — his campaign to dominate the volatile oil industry — into devastating effect. Rockefeller knew that the refiner with the lowest transportation cost could bring rivals to their knees. He entered into a secret alliance with the railroads called the South Improvement Company. In exchange for large, regular shipments, Rockefeller and his allies secured transport rates far lower than those of their bewildered competitors.

Ida Tarbell, the daughter of an oil man, later remembered how men like her father struggled to make sense of events: “An uneasy rumor began running up and down the Oil Regions,” she wrote. “Freight rates were going up. … Moreover … all members of the South Improvement Company — a company unheard of until now — were exempt. … Nobody waited to find out his neighbor’s opinion. On every lip there was but one word and that was ‘conspiracy.'”

Ron Chernow, Biographer: By 1879, when Rockefeller is 40, he controls 90 percent of the oil refining in the world. Within a few years, he will control 90 percent of the marketing of oil and a third of all of the oil wells. So this very young man controls what is not only a national but an international monopoly in a commodity that is about to become the most important strategic commodity in the world economy.

SOURCE: The Rockefellers

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The Corbett Report

Part Two - Why Big OIL CONQUERED THE WORLD

The Oil Ship called the Murex
Source Ship Stamps

She was designed by Fortescue Flannery, and would be used for the transport of oil from the Black Sea mostly to Far Eastern ports. 26 July 1892 the MUREX was completed and set sail under command of Capt. John R. Coudon in ballast for Batum in the Black Sea. After loading there a cargo of kerosene she headed for the Far East. 24 August 1892 she passed the Suez Canal, she was the first tanker, which sailed through the canal, and arrived 16 September 1892 at Singapore with 4.720 tons of kerosene, the first tanker who arrived at this port.