The United States Congress creates the Interstate…

The United States Congress creates the Interstate Commerce Commission, which is tasked with enforcing equal rates for all railroad freight, in 1887, but by now Standard is depending more on pipeline transport.

Standard Oil has passed its peak of power over the world oil market by the 1880s, despite the formation of the Standard Oil Trust in 1882 and its perceived immunity from all competition.

Rockefeller finally gives up his dream of controlling all the world’s oil refining, admitting later, “We realized that public sentiment would be against us if we actually refined all the oil.” (Segall, Grant (2001). John D. Rockefeller: Anointed With Oil. Oxford University Press. p. 67.)

Over time foreign competition and new finds abroad will erode Rockefeller’s dominance.

Rockefeller had created one of his most important innovations in the early 1880s.

Rather than try to influence the price of crude oil directly, Standard Oil had been exercising indirect control by altering oil storage charges to suit market conditions.

Rockefeller now decided to order the issuance of certificates against oil stored in its pipelines.

These certificates had become traded by speculators, thus creating the first oil-futures market, which effectively sets spot market prices from now on.

The National Petroleum Exchange had opened in Manhattan in late 1882 to facilitate the oil futures trading.

Even though eighty-five percent of world crude production is still coming from Pennsylvania wells in the 1880s, overseas drilling in Russia and Asia has begun to reach the world market.

Robert Nobel has established his own refining enterprise in the abundant and cheaper Russian oil fields, including the region’s first pipeline and the world’s first oil tanker.

The Paris Rothschilds have joined the fray, providing financing.

Additional fields have been discovered in Burma and Java.

Even more critical, the invention of the light bulb has gradually began to erode the dominance of kerosene for illumination.

But Standard Oil adapts, developing its own European presence, will soon expand into natural gas production in the U.S., then into gasoline—formerly considered a waste product—for automobiles.

Standard Oil has moved its headquarters to New York City at 26 Broadway, and Rockefeller has become a central figure in the city’s business community, buying a personal residence in 1884 on 54th street near the mansions of other magnates such as William Vanderbilt.

Rockefeller takes the new elevated train to his downtown office daily despite personal threats and constant pleas for charity.