Well oxygen is toxic and corrosive here, too. ;) It is also not flammable/combustible on its own. It can support combustion, yes. But pure oxygen in a pure oxygen environment isn't combustible as I recall.
Anyway, the extraction of oxygen from carbon monoxide is something well within the range of 19-20th century tech. The basic reaction process, known as hydrogenation, is to combine it with hydrogen and a metallic catalyst. This is a strongly exothermic reaction that produces ethylene and water. From there you can separate the water via electrolysis or via algae reactors.
An algae reactor leverages the fact that certain algae, when they are deprived of sulfur, switch to making hydrogen from water instead of oxygen. It could be that on your world certain algae naturally do this. That could make for interesting geopolitical situations as well as interesting terrain features where such algae is present. While you don't get oxygen directly from the water, it is low power and produces hydrogen which is very valuable for many of the reactions I'll mention.
Of course, you could still have algae which split water into oxygen for you, too. So perhaps you have a bioreactor for each, with the oxygen and hydrogen coming off of it being used as inputs various chemical reactions. And while we've only recently figured out the sulfur deprivation trick, we've known about the hydrogen switch for over a century so even that should fit the tech level given.
For example, I can envision a steampunk algae bioreactor setup combined with an ethylene generator, with the heat from the ethylene/water generator producing electricity turbines via low-level steam turbines. You'd also thus have ethylene which is a pretty decent fuel - and could serve as a foundation for the beginnings of plastics production as well as a liquid fuel. Perhaps your world is more plastic than metal based? The production of polyethelyne on our world consumes about half of our prodigious production of ethylene.
We first started knowingly mucking around w/ethylene in the 1600s so it fits the tech level you gave. The catch is is is essentially a bit energy intensive to make. Of course, ethylene is a hydrocarbon, and it may also occur in deposits on your world in the way oil does on ours. Rather than decomposed dead things, they might conceivably form underground where CO, water, and algae were trapped. Or maybe you've got an algae that does it not from photosynthesis but from thermal energy. Then you could have "pockets" of ethylene underground (or near thermal vents) - perhaps from tectonic shifts which brought the algae and water down into the ground.
As far as ethylene as fuel, for heating it is about 5 times more useful than carbon monoxide directly (yes, CO can be used as a fuel). If your industries have access to chlorine they can also use it with the CO to provide a stepping stone to various acids.
I've also seen some references to using a copper catalyst to break out the oxygen from carbon monoxide but don't know the particulars. There are also references to using zirconia to electrolysis to produce
As for CO directly as a fuel, this paper from 1949 talks a bit about CO uses as a fuel, comparing to methane. Note that most of the paper is about actually producing the CO, which may not be an issue on your world. ;) Also, you can relatively easily mix a catalyst, CO, and H2 to produce methane as well. For more ideas on that you could also check out this article which talks about coal gas - which contained CO as a key component. For gross and net heating values per cubic foot or per pound, CO is about as good as H2. Note that ethylene is still loads better by volume, but less than hydrogen by weight.
That said, I guess "common" may need more clarification. Carbon monoxide is combustible and has a lower flammability level of, IIRC, around 12% and an upper limit of about 75% - so it better be really common or not that common. ;) So really, provided you have a means to dilute/concentrate the CO found in the air you've got fuel to burn and thus bootstrap other fuels.
Other bits to look up would be the Water-Gas-Shift, Sabatier reaction, and Reverse-Water-Gas-Shift to get more details on ways your planet's industry could develop fuels.
Now as to your carbide rich surface, this can produce fuel for you "naturally" as well. You could have methane and/or hydrogen pockets (from water+beryllium or water+manganese carbides), for example. There are additional possibilities such as acetylene, ethylene and various mixes. That said I'd feel free to stipulate that the planet isn't "carbides all the way down".
Hopefully that provides you with some options and ideas.