First Oil Well in South America (Zorritos, 1863)

In November 1863, in the dry quebrada of Tucillal in Zorritos, an event occurred that transformed the continental economic history of South America: the drilling of Well No. 1 (Pozo N.º 1), recognized universally as the first modern petroleum well in South America and the second in the world drilled with mechanized percussion machinery, barely four years after Edwin Drake's famous discovery in Titusville, Pennsylvania (1859).

Natural petroleum seeps (known locally as 'copé' or pitch) had been utilized since pre-Columbian times by Tumpis and Tallán natives to caulk balsa rafts and ceramic containers. In 1863, Peruvian engineer José Soto and North American technicians erected a primitive wooden derrick and deployed spring-pole percussion drilling equipment in the Tucillal canyon, striking light crude oil at a depth of merely 24 to 30 meters.

The industrial transformation of the Zorritos petroleum basin escalated dramatically in 1883 when Italian-Peruvian entrepreneur Faustino G. Piaggio acquired the concessions and founded the Establecimiento Industrial de Zorritos. Piaggio modernized the entire petroleum supply chain:

• Drilling and Production: Deepening rotary wells along the beach and coastal bluffs, deploying steam-powered beam pumping jacks.
• Refining and Processing: Constructing an advanced refinery with fractional distillation stills, producing high-grade kerosene for domestic lighting, industrial lubricants, gasoline, and fuel oil.
• Maritime Logistics: Erecting an iron pier into the ocean with subsea pipeline connections to load oil tankers anchored in the bay, as well as installing the first barrel-making plants in the region.

Zorritos quickly became the primary national fuel supplier and an international exporter of kerosene, powering the modernization of coastal steamships and railway networks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although heavy industrial extraction eventually shifted south to Talara and offshore platforms in the mid-20th century, Zorritos preserves an extraordinary industrial heritage: the historic oil derrick overlooking the beach, iron wellheads dating back over a century, and the memory of having inaugurated the modern hydrocarbon era in Latin America.