Why did oil become such a coveted resource?

Oil became a very coveted resource when the oil industry as we know it began supplying much of the world in the mid-19th Century. It all happened due to the discovery of the world's first commercially usable oil well that was located in Romania. Then another was discovered in the United States in Pennsylvania. The technology was booming at that time, which created new products from oil, and thus, there was significant demand for oil all of a sudden.

It has only progressed from there and probably will continue to do so. Before there was oil everywhere, but no one knew it and wouldn't have known what to do with it anyway. Technology made it like gold, and that is true today. In many ways, it rules the world by the money it produces and the power it brings along with it. Oil is a perplexing commodity, but the world only cannot or will not do without it.