Innovations in Crude Oil Production Essay

In Beaumont, Texas they had started to drill at around October 27, 1900 and before they started drilling again some of them lost hope because they had been drilling for a long time and didn't find anything. They had been drilling for over two months and drilled down above 1000 feet below the ground. When they had returned from their christmas break they started drilling and they heard a “a noise like a cannon” and natural gas was spraying out of the hole. There was so much oil that it could fill up more than 100,000 barrels a day. Texas has been impacted a lot today because they have so much oil in abundance. That is the reason why their gas prices are low and trading is

In Texas, there is an economic powerhouse that not only runs deep beneath fields of cotton, but also reaches miles beyond the green pastures of cattle. Its multitude of uses in daily life also far outweighs the benefits of technology. This resource, greater than any other in Texas, is oil. In 1866 the first commercial oil well was dug near Nacogdoches, Texas but unfortunately the well came up dry. Thirty years later in 1894 oil was discovered in Corsicana, Texas by accident while a water well was being dug. This was the first economically significant discovery of oil in Texas. On January 10, 1901, Texas was catapulted into the era of oil and gas with the discovery at Spindletop. The Spindletop well, located south of Beaumont produced roughly

From the 1890s, as a result of discovery and drilling of some of the most productive oil fields in the world, the small town of Los Angeles suffered a big change. By 1930, California was producing nearly one quarter of the world's oil output, and its population had grown to 1.2 million. In the flowing decades, urban and suburban area grew quickly, surrounding by closeness and more openness of the oil wells. People found ways to camouflaged machinery, decreased loud noises, vented methane pockets, as residents had to live closely to those oil production facilities. Until now days, oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin remain very productive. By applying modern techniques, operations can be conducted in smaller areas, and some of them have been moved offshore. However, there are still some oil fields and drilling activities hiding among the shopping malls, sports sites and residences of Los Angeles.

Offshore drilling has become an essential part of today’s oil production and demand for energy. With the growth of population comes the increasing demand for oil. The oil industry today, is one of the most used providers of energy. Today in the 20th century the majority of the population in America has a car and cars needs gas to run. The oil reserves in the earth that are easily accessible via land are starting to run dry and are becoming harder to find. This is why we have begun to see more and more offshore oil drills. Although there are benefits of offshore drilling such as profit, lower gas prices, and becoming less dependent on foreign oil. There are also many drawbacks in which if something were to go wrong, the mistake would be catastrophic impacting the environment, the nature, and have trickling effects all around the world.

"Soon the 4-inch drill pipe…shot skyward. After the mud, water, and pipe were blown out, gas followed, but only for a short time. Then the well was very quiet. We ventured back, after our wild scramble for safety, to find things in a terrible mess...We started shoveling the mud away-when, without warning, a lot of heavy mud shot out of the well with the report of a cannon…In a very short time oil was going up through the top of the derricks, and rocks were being shot hundreds of feet into the air. Within a very few minutes, the oil was holding a steady flow at more than twice the height of the derrick…”

The consumption of the oil cause changes in the supply and demand. The United States produces 11 million barrels of oil every day. We are one of the biggest countries to have a big influence on the production and prices of the oil. The basic supply and demand theory explains that the if a product is produced more, the cheaper it should sell. If a country were to double the output of oil day, prices would fall and the Production is high, but the distribution of oil isn’t keeping up with the market. The United States builds an average of one oil refinery per 10 years. This is a net loss due to the fact construction has slowed down since 1970s. Since 1970s, the United States has 8 less oil refineries today. The reason why we are not oversupplied with cheap oil is because of the other countries’ higher net margin and the only operate at 62% of their capacity. Excess capacity is only there to meet future demand. With demand moving accordingly, oil prices will continue to be set mostly by the market — despite external players’ best efforts. (McFarlane)

Offshore drilling is defined as” The operation of oil wells on the continental shelf, sometimes in water hundreds of feet deep” according to dictionary.com. This method of drilling is a very common form, being used throughout different locations offshore everywhere in the world, the first being in 1897 according to howstuffworks.com. The locations of oil are found by two main methods. The first one is by finding magnetic occurrences that are in natural in the ground. If readings found a steady amount of magnetism over a general area then suddenly a large decline, they could have found the location of an oil deposit. But to ensure that is in fact a trap, the second method called sparking. “sparking is sending shock waves down through the water and into the ocean floor.” This allows ships above to be able to read the ground below and see at different locations where

The most important social change caused by oil is better university education. Most of the 1 million acres that the Texas legislature had given to the future University of Texas was dry and didn't look like much. By 2008, it had produced $4.4 billion in oil and gas royalty payments and other income for the University of Texas systems. Within the first year of finding oil on the university grounds there were 17 producing wells in the Big Lake Field. University of Texas was on its way to becoming very wealthy.(Document

The oil business today is growing immensely and has been for quite some time dating all the way back to 1870. As you can see from the quote oil production is only going to grow more. The man responsible for all of it is John D. Rockefeller.

    Due to the amount of money that people get paid for locating large amounts of oil, around the early 1920´s Texas A&M University was searching for a well.  Finding oil can also lower the cost for because you have a well yourself.  In May 28 1923, they struck a very good one and it started to gush.  This caused it to start a building boom and Texas A&M got 4.4 million dollars richer by 2008.

On January 10, 1901, a huge geyser of oil exploded from a drilling site at Spindle top Hill, by an underground salt deposit located near Beaumont in Jefferson County, southeastern Texas. Reaching a height of more than 150 feet, the “gusher” was more powerful than any previously seen in the world. A booming oil industry soon grew up around the oil field at Spindle top, and many of the major oil companies in America.

Saturation trends in the Pronghorn and the upper Three Forks (Figure 21), indicates that hydrocarbons are being occluded from the lower Bakken into the Three Forks, but not entirely. Oil saturation gradually decreases from the top of the Pronghorn to the base indicating less hydrocarbons are being pushed into the upper Three Forks. However, the oil saturation never reach 0% and only decreases to approximately 60 to 70 % water saturation. The oil saturation then gradually increases from the top of the Three Forks to the top of the first claystone. This trend is observed throughout all the wells within Painted Woods, independent to the thickness of the Pronghorn. Even though there is less volume of generated lower Bakken hydrocarbons, oil is still able to be transmitted through the Pronghorn across Painted Woods. However, the quantities transmitted are likely less compared to other

The issue of whether offshore oil drilling is a safe operation or not has been arguing for a long time in the United States. ( SPE International, N.D.) Drilling on water started in early 1930s in Louisiana by shallow-draft barges. Nevertheless, the first oil well on water was drilled in 9th of September, 1947 by Kerr-McGee’s unit Tender Assist Drilling (TAD) in the Gulf of Mexico (SPE International, N.D.). A year after year, oil companies used more and more sophisticated equipment to drill on water, but the number of spilled accidents has been rising since 1964 (Ivanovich, and Hays, 2008). After all, while

crude oil allowed in at the bottom of the tower at a time so that the

World oil demand is increasing as emerging economies need more energy to increase their living standards. Estimates, shown below, are that by 2030, China and India as emerging markets will import over 70% to 90% of their fossil fuel needs (1) . Coupled to a continued high and growing demand for oil, makes this a robust market for the next 30 years.