text: Samuel Kier established America's first oil refinery in Pittsburgh on Seventh avenue near Grant Street in 1853. Ignacy Łukasiewicz built one of the first modern oil-refineries near Jasło (then in the Austrian dependent Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in Central European Galicia), present-day Poland, in 1854–56. Galician refineries were initially small, as demand for refined fuel was limited. The refined products were used in artificial asphalt, machine oil and lubricants, in addition to Łukasiewicz's kerosene lamp. As kerosene lamps gained popularity, the refining industry grew in the area.
  The first commercial oil-well in Canada became operational in 1858 at Oil Springs, Ontario (then Canada West). Businessman James Miller Williams dug several wells between 1855 and 1858 before discovering a rich reserve of oil four metres below ground. Williams extracted 1.5 million litres of crude oil by 1860, refining much of it into kerosene-lamp oil. Some historians challenge Canada's claim to North America's first oil field, arguing that Pennsylvania's famous Drake Well was the continent's first.  But there is evidence to support Williams, not least of which is that the Drake well did not come into production until August 28, 1859.  The controversial point might be that Williams found oil above bedrock while Edwin Drake's well located oil within a bedrock reservoir. The discovery at Oil Springs touched off an oil boom which brought hundreds of speculators and workers to the area. Canada's first gusher (flowing well) erupted on January 16, 1862, when local oil-man John Shaw struck oil at 158 feet (48 m). For a week the oil gushed unchecked at levels reported as high as 3,000 barrels per day.