1929 - Energy

Energy

Continental Oil Co. (Conoco) is created by J. P. Morgan & Co., which has taken over Continental Oil of Maine (originally founded by Utah and Wyoming businessmen in 1872 as an oil marketing firm) and merges it with the Marland Oil Co. that it took over last year (see du Pont, 1981).

The world produces 1,488 million barrels of crude oil, with just over two-thirds of it coming from the United States. Persia produces 42 million barrels, Iraq 1 million.

The British protectorate of Brunei on the north coast of Borneo begins pumping oil; her hitherto impecunious sultan will become one of the world's richest men.

Indiana-born Ohio utilities company lawyer Wendell L. (Lewis) Willkie, 41, moves to New York to become legal counsel to the new Commonwealth & Southern Corp., a giant holding company put together by Bernard C. Cobb (see 1933).

Electric arc lamp creator Charles F. Brush dies at Cleveland June 15 at age 80; chemist Carl von Welsbach of 1885 Welsbach mantle gaslight fame in his Carinthian castle at Treibach, Austria, August 4 at age 70. His mantle will remain in widespread use in kerosene lanterns and other such lamps.