Blog Post

World's first oil refinery: the city of Ploiesti

Nov 12, 2018

Romania was the first country in the world to have exported gas since the 1900s.

Built in 1856 and inaugurated in 1857 by the brothers Teodor and Marin Mehedinţeanu, the Rafov Refinery, a refinery built at Ploiesti, on 174 Buna Vestire Street, had a surface of 4 hectares, and the daily production reached over 7 tons, obtained in cylindrical iron and iron casts that were heated by fire from wood; it was then called

PLOIESTI, Romania -- Built in 1856 and inaugurated in 1857by the brothers Teodor and Marin Mehedinţeanu, the Rafov Refinery, a refinery built at Ploiesti, on 174 Buna Vestire Street, had a surface of 4 hectares, and the daily production reached over 7 tons, obtained in cylindrical iron and iron casts that were heated by fire from wood; it was then called "the world's first systematic oil distillery," setting the record for being the World's First Oil Refinery , according to the Academy Of World Records.

This refinery obtained, on the basis of a contract concluded in October 1856 between Teodor Mehedinţeanu and the City Hall of Bucharest, the exclusive right to supply the illumination of the Wallachian capital with lamp lamp.

The contract began to be executed on April 1, 1857, when, by replacing the kidnapped oil with the products supplied by the Rafov refinery, "Bucharest became the first city in the world illuminated entirely with distilled crude oil."

In 1857, the total production of Romanian countries amounted to 275 tons of crude oil. With this figure, Romania was registered as the first country in world oil production statistics , before other large oil producing states such as the United States of America (1860), Russia (1863), Mexico (1901) or Persia (1913 ).