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As more economical steelmaking methods were developed, an opportunity opened up for this material to be used for pipes. The first were forge-welded out of hoop steel, a method already known to gunsmiths in the Middle Ages. Around 1880, the invention of crossrolling by the Mannesmann brothers also made it possible to produce seamless pipes and tubes. With their thicker walls, seamless pipes offered greater stability at a relatively low weight. Oil-prospectors used such pipes to reach deeper reservoirs and by doing so were able to satisfy the growing demand for mineral oil which accompanied the early days of motorisation. The fact that mineral oil could be transported economically over long distances through a pipeline pushed up the demand for steel pipes even further. Soon, pipelines came to be the biggest market in this area, with demand reaching several million tonnes of welded and seamless pipes every year.