Here's an older answer of mine that covers most of the ground here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fmwx8q/how_did_people_strike_oil_back_in_the_day/fl7w5wy/

In summary, natural petroleum has been exploited since antiquity, but primarily in surface deposits. Mining for brine has also historically resulted in production of natural gas and petroleum products, which has been a well known thing for almost 2500 years (at least in China). It wasn't until the advances in industrial technology and in the massive increase in demand for petroleum products (from the invention of Kerosene, etc.) that production of oil and gas has been a huge deal, but it's always been fairly important.