OIL

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OIL
Black gold, Texas tea.
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What is it?
Crude oil is a blanket term for a mixture of
hydrocarbons some are long chain hydrocarbons,
while others are very shortExact proportion of
different hydrocarbons determines viscosityand
other characteristics big differences in crude
oil from various locationsMayan crude - very
thick, almost tarrySaudi crude - very thin, can
almost be used directly in diesel motor
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Oil Usage
Data from Dept. of Energy, http//www.eia.doe.gov/
emeu/aer/txt/tab0511.htm
Not all crude oil is used for gasoline. Over
half of all crude oilused in the U.S. goes to
other purposes, such as jet fuel, home heating
oil, and plastics
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Transportation
About 65 of crude oil (almost 13 MBPD) is used
for tansportation of this, the majority (8.5
MBPD) is for gasoline
BTS, 2001, http//www.bts.gov/publications/nationa
l_transportation_statistics/2002/index.html
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Other Uses
About 6 of crude oil is used to heat homes and
buildingsAnother 2 is used for generating
electricityRemaining amount (26) used by
industry
3 for asphalt and road oil9 for LPG4 for
coke3 for petrochemical feedstock
Even if stopped using oil for transportation,
will still need itfor our modern lifestyles
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Oil drilling
Offshore
Onshore
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Primary Method
The cheapest method for extracting oil is to
pump it out of the ground using a well
This removes about 15-20 of the oil that
is stored in the rock matrix
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Secondary Method
The second cheapest method for extracting oil
is to inject water into the reservoir at a low
spot while pumping from a high spot
This removes another 15-20 of the oil that
is stored in the rock matrix
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Tertiary Method
The most expensive method for extracting oil is
inject a surfactant like steam or CO2 while
pumping
This removes another 10 of the oil that
is stored in the rock matrix
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Moving Petroleum
Once the oil/gas gets to the surface, it must
be moved to market.
Amount of oil produced from a unit might be
thousands to tens ofthousands of barrels of oil
per day
Need reliable system to get oil to refinery or
large holding area boats and trucks not reliable
Solution --gt Pipeline
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Onshore Pipeline
Onshore, the pipeline is usually buried in the
U.S. Exception is the TransAlaskan pipeline,
which must be above ground to prevent permafrost
melting.In other countries, done routinely.
Above ground pipelines are subjectto terrorism,
theft, and drunk hunters.
Alaska pipeline leak from hunters
bullet(Source BBC)
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Offshore Pipeline
Offshore oil rigs use pipelines running along the
bottom of the ocean to get it to nearest land.
Repairs can be extremely costly. Most failure
incidents are caused by corrosion most large
spillsare caused by anchors (about 3,000 bbls
oil spilled per incident)
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Gulf of Mexico
Offshore LouisianaRed lines - Oil Blue lines -
Gas Black dots - StructureEach green, gold,
andblue square is a 3 mileby 3 mile leased
blockWhite squares are notleased
Map courtesy of MMS
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Tankers
Oil is an international commodity.To cross the
ocean or seas, oil tankers are used. Amount
of oil in transport by tankeris quite large, as
the world consumesover 75 million barrels per
day
Source BBC
Persian Gulf alone accounts for 15 million
barrels per day exportedTanker spills account
for 29 million gallons of oil spill per year
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Oil refining
Crude oil is a mixture of different hydrocarbons
Different hydrocarbons have different boiling
points
Separate by heating to various temperatures
Can change the percentage of various hydrocarbons
by cracking (thermally or chemically) them
into smaller ones
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Environmental Damage
Oil wells produce radioactive water Oil spills
from wells, tankers, and pipelines occur
frequently usually small, but can be quite large
Fumes emitted by refineries are toxic linked to
cancer, lung disease, and host of
other problems Sometimes, refineries blow up
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Oil Shale and Tar Sand
Oil shale - kerogen trapped within the low
permeability shalemay be up to 40 of
shaleU.S. has about 130 billion barrels of oil
in this form (2/3 of world total no production
facilities, though requires miningshale,
crushing it, and then passing steam through it to
captureoil Tar sand - heavy, asphalt-like
crude trapped in sandstone worldreserves
possibly 3 times that of conventional oilCan
heat the oil in place to low viscosity and remove
it cheaperto mine it like oil shale
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U.S. Production
While consumption of oil in the U.S.has been
increasing for 20 year, domestic production
peaked in 1970.
Majority of U.S. oil from the Gulf of Mexico
(mostly Texas and Louisiana),Alaska, and
California
Data from the Hubbert Center, http//www.hubbertpe
ak.com/us/
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U.S. Imports
Common perception is that all of our oil comes
from Saudi Arabia
Both Mexico and Canada provide as much as Saudi
Arabia
U.S. oil imports by source (DOE)
Nigeria and Venezuela also provide large
quantities
By how much would fuel efficiency of cars have to
increase so that could replace Saudi Arabia
contribution?
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World Oil Reserves
Data from the Hubbert Center, http//hubbert.mines
.edu/news/Campbell_02-3.pdf
Current estimates of oil reserves show that
Arabia andEurasia have over 75 of the worlds
oil
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How Long?
The question is not how much long will we have
oil, but how longwill we have cheap oil?
Source C.J.Campbell, 1996
How will international politics change if this
situation plays out?