Shell Oil Company

Documentary on the first stage in oil exploration: the first drill.

All-puppet animation tells the story of how oil is formed through ages of geological change, how it is found, extracted and put to use by man.

In this film, Shell Oil situates its extractive process as an episode within geologic time, naturalizing its products even as it inspires wonder. It contrasts the impatience of the suburban husband wanting to drive his car against the expansive scale of fossil history. According to Shell, with the drilling of oil, “The cycle is complete. Nature’s plan is quite perfect” – the question of where we might fall within such a purported cycle, and what nature may have in store for us, remains an open one.

A movie by the Shell Oil Company traces the history of the development of the diesel engine from the Otto 'SILENT' gas engine of 1877.

This Shell Film from 1953, "Oil The Invisible Traveler" looks at how petroleum is brought from producing regions to the market. It starts with the challenges of oil transportation, notably that it is a lot harder to transport a liquid. This is followed by a short history of oil transportation including barrels, carts, and floats, and how these eventually evolved into tanker cars on trains, tanker trucks, ocean tankers, and pipelines. Then the US pipeline system is explained as well as how oil is transported in an example case from Texas to New York. It ends with all the benefits that oil products bring to daily life.

Documentary on the genesis of oil in the Earth's crust.

Produced by George Pal, "Birth of An Oil Field" was directed by Duke Goldstone and released in 1949 by the Shell Oil Company. This film, part of a series of outstanding movies on the petroleum industry produced by Shell, explains and demonstrates methods, procedures, and equipment used in the drilling of oil wells and delivery of petroleum products worldwide.