How is petroleum drilled

If it does not encounter rocky obstacles underground, it can seep all the way to the surface and bubble above ground. Unfortunately, because bitumen contains high amounts of sulfur and heavy metals, extracting and refining it is both costly and harmful to the environment.

Bitumen is about the consistency of cold molasses, and powerful hot steam has to be pumped into the well in order to melt the bitumen to extract it. Large quantities of water are then used to separate the bitumen from sand and clay. This process depletes nearby water supplies. Releasing the treated water back into the environment can further contaminate the remaining water supply.

Processing bitumen from tar sands is also a complex, expensive procedure. It takes two tons of oil sands to produce one barrel of oil. A small percentage is used for roofing and other products. The Athabasca Oil Sands are the fourth-largest reserves of oil in the world. Unfortunately, the bitumen reserves are located beneath part of the boreal forest, also called the taiga. This makes extraction both difficult and environmentally dangerous. The taiga circles the Northern Hemisphere just below the frozen tundra, spanning more than 5 million square kilometers 2 million square miles , mostly in Canada, Russia, and Scandinavia.

It accounts for almost one-third of all of the forested land on the planet. Every spring, the boreal forest releases immense amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere and keeps our air clean. It is home to a mosaic of plant and animal life, all of which depend on the mature trees, mosses, and lichen of the boreal biome.

Surface mines are estimated to only take up 0. Refining Petroleum Refining petroleum is the process of converting crude oil or bitumen into more useful products, such as fuel or asphalt.

Crude oil comes out of the ground with impurities, from sulfur to sand. These components have to be separated. This is done by heating the crude oil in a distillation tower that has trays and temperatures set at different levels. Propane, kerosene, and other components condense on different tiers of the tower, and can be individually collected. They are transported by pipeline, ocean vessels, and trucks to different locations, to either be used directly or further processed.

Petroleum Industry Oil was not always extracted, refined, and used by millions of people as it is today. However, it has always been an important part of many cultures. The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China as early as CE. The wells were drilled almost meters feet deep using strong bamboo bits. The oil was extracted and transported through bamboo pipelines. It was burned as a heating fuel and industrial component. Chinese engineers burned petroleum to evaporate brine and produce salt.

On the west coast of North America, indigenous people used bitumen as an adhesive to make canoes and baskets water-tight, and as a binder for creating ceremonial decorations and tools. By the 7th century, Japanese engineers discovered that petroleum could be burned for light.

Oil was later distilled into kerosene by a Persian alchemist in the 9th century. During the s, petroleum slowly replaced whale oil in kerosene lamps, producing a radical decline in whale-hunting. The modern oil industry was established in the s.

The first well was drilled in Poland in , and the technology spread to other countries and was improved. The Industrial Revolution created a vast new opportunity for the use of petroleum. Machinery powered by steam engines quickly became too slow, small-scale, and expensive.

Petroleum-based fuel was in demand. The invention of the mass-produced automobile in the early 20th century further increased demand for petroleum.

Petroleum production has rapidly increased. In , the U. By , that number was million barrels per year. Today, the U. According to OPEC, more than 70 million barrels are produced worldwide every day.

That is almost 49, barrels per minute. Although that seems like an impossibly high amount, the uses for petroleum have expanded to almost every area of life. Petroleum makes our lives easy in many ways. In many countries, including the U. The United States consumes more oil than any other country. This is more than all of the oil consumed in Latin America 8.

Petroleum is an ingredient in thousands of everyday items. The gasoline that we depend on for transportation to school, work, or vacation comes from crude oil.

A barrel of petroleum produces about 72 liters 19 gallons of gasoline, and is used by people all over the world to power cars, boats, jets, and scooters.

Diesel-powered generators are used in many remote homes, schools, and hospitals. Petroleum is found in recreational items as diverse as surfboards, footballs and basketballs, bicycle tires, golf bags, tents, cameras, and fishing lures.

Petroleum is also contained in more essential items such as artificial limbs, water pipes, and vitamin capsules. In our homes, we are surrounded by and depend on products that contain petroleum. House paint, trash bags, roofing, shoes, telephones, hair curlers, and even crayons contain refined petroleum. Carbon Cycle There are major disadvantages to extracting fossil fuels, and extracting petroleum is a controversial industry. Carbon constantly cycles between the water, land, and atmosphere.

Carbon is absorbed by plants and is part of every living organism as it moves through the food web. Carbon is naturally released through volcanoes, soil erosion, and evaporation.

Not all of the carbon on Earth is involved in the carbon cycle above ground. Vast quantities of it are sequestered, or stored, underground, in the form of fossil fuels and in the soil. However, that budget is falling out of balance. Since the Industrial Revolution, fossil fuels have been aggressively extracted and burned for energy or fuel. This releases the carbon that has been sequestered underground, and upsets the carbon budget. This affects the quality of our air, water, and overall climate.

The taiga, for example, sequesters vast amounts of carbon in its trees and below the forest floor. Drilling for natural resources not only releases the carbon stored in the fossil fuels, but also the carbon stored in the forest itself. Combusting gasoline, which is made from petroleum, is particularly harmful to the environment. Every 3. Gasoline and diesel also directly pollute the atmosphere. They emit toxic compounds and particulates, including formaldehyde and benzene.

People and Petroleum Oil is a major component of modern civilization. In developing countries, access to affordable energy can empower citizens and lead to higher quality of life. Petroleum provides transportation fuel, is a part of many chemicals and medicines, and is used to make crucial items such as heart valves, contact lenses, and bandages.

Peak oil is the point when the oil industry is extracting the maximum possible amount of petroleum. After peak oil, petroleum production will only decrease.

After peak oil, there will be a decline in production and a rise in costs for the remaining supply. Measuring peak oil uses the reserves-to-production ratio RPR. This ratio compares the amount of proven oil reserves to the current extraction rate. The reserves-to-production ratio is expressed in years. The RPR is different for every oil rig and every oil-producing area. Oil-producing regions that are also major consumers of oil have a lower RPR than oil producers with low levels of consumption.

The oil-rich, developing nation of Iran, which has a much lower consumption rate, has an RPR of more than 80 years. It is impossible to know the precise year for peak oil. Some geologists argue it has already passed, while others maintain that extraction technology will delay peak oil for decades. Many geologists estimate that peak oil might be reached within 20 years.

Petroleum Alternatives Individuals, industries, and organizations are increasingly concerned with peak oil and environmental consequences of petroleum extraction. Alternatives to oil are being developed in some areas, and governments and organizations are encouraging citizens to change their habits so we do not rely so heavily on oil.

Bioasphalts, for example, are asphalts made from renewable sources such as molasses, sugar, corn, potato starch, or even byproducts of oil processes. There are several ways to heat bitumen below ground.

Both of the commonly used methods — SAGD and CSS — use large volumes of water and burn natural gas to create steam that is injected into the oil sands deposit. New research is leading to technologies that reduce or eliminate the need for water and natural gas.

Currently, most in situ operations use steam-assisted gravity drainage SAGD , which uses well pairs two wells, an injection well and a production well, drilled one above the other to recover bitumen. The injection well is drilled vertically into the deposit, then turned 90 degrees and drilled horizontally.

A second well, known as the production well, is drilled deeper than the first, paralleling the horizontal portion of the first well. Steam is injected into the deposit through the upper well. Heated bitumen begins to move by gravity down toward the second well.

Pumps in the second well draw the bitumen into the well and up to the surface. Multiple wells sometimes more than 20 can be drilled from a single surface location, further reducing surface disturbance. This method pumps steam down a vertical well to soak or liquefy the bitumen, which is then pumped to the surface through the same well.

This technique is repeated until most of the oil is removed. Initially, companies may begin their exploration process by reviewing existing geological and geophysical data to learn more about potential reservoirs. Next, seismic surveys are completed to map geological structures under the seabed. If an analysis of seismic data shows a geological structure that could contain oil and natural gas resources, a company may decide to drill an exploration well.

Before drilling and offshore oil extraction can begin, companies must apply for the appropriate approvals from the relevant regulatory body in Atlantic Canada. Should a company decide that it wants to proceed to offshore oil and natural gas production, the next step is development. The offshore development phase can take five to 10 years, depending on the size of the project. Using specialized instruments to monitor pressure and data from the well in real time, fracking fluid , which is The cycles of steps 4 and 5 are repeated, gradually working up the hole until all the lateral length of the wellbore has been fracked.

This might be 20 or 30 times—but a process that typically takes only a few days to finish. Once fracking is completed, production begins. Oil and natural gas flows up from the well bore and fracturing fluid is then recovered and recycled and used in other fracking operations. Once fracking is complete, the production site shrinks to the size of about a two-car garage. When all of the recovered oil and natural gas has been produced, Colorado law requires that the well is permanently plugged and the land is returned to the way it was before the drilling operations started.

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