Oil Demand Increases as Production has Decreased

The oil is extracted by simply being forced through a rock, which the droplets can actually do on their own, as they are pushed by large amounts of pressure that exist beneath the surface. This pressure comes from a build-up of rock lying on the oil and from heat from the earth that builds up in a reservoir and expands any gases from the inside of the rock. When an oil well strikes a reservoir, the pressure is released and forces the oil through the rock and up to the surface. The oil may squeeze into any fractures in the reservoir, and if these fractures run in the direction of an oil well, they can act as pipelines in which the oil will flow.

In the modern day, technology alters our life better. That technology, such as cell-phones, cars, washing machines, microwaves make our life more efficient and comfortable. We can call or text our friends and family immediately or drive to their house whenever we want. Moreover, we do not need to wash cloths with our hands. Technology helps us to save a lot of time to do other things. On the other hand, these advantages make us more and more rely on technology. Actually, technology consumes a lot of energy or electricity every day. Nowadays, many countries choose to burn fossil fuel to generate electricity, such as petroleum, coal, and natural gas. The fossil fuels are limited. The website Ecotricity.co.uk

The Eagle Ford shale formation in south Texas has recently become the focus of many oil industry operators searching for new sources of hydrocarbons by using the latest technology in previously unexplored areas. This exploration enhances the development of even more advanced techniques as issues are identified and problems solved to address the unique properties of the formation and the surrounding surface environment. Even though a formation may be comprised of a single sedimentary layer from a similar geological time frame it is not a homogeneous block and has many features and anomalies that effect the pressure, permeability, type of hydrocarbons trapped and methods required to extract them. To understand these properties one must understand that shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock that forms from the compaction of silt and clay placing it in the mudstone category of rocks [1]. Shale is different from other rocks in this category because it has a fissile structure and is laminated. The black shale in the Eagle Ford formation (Fig 1.) has a special property such that it contained organic material when it was deposited and during compaction over a millennium, the organic materials were converted into trapped oil and gas hydrocarbon deposits. This oil and gas are very difficult to remove because it is trapped within tiny pore spaces and or adsorbed onto clay mineral particles that makeup the shale.

Since the beginning of the oilfield in the United States, Texas has been one of the leading states in this industry. In 1866, Lyne T. Barret drilled the first producing oil well at Melrose in Nacogdoches County [7]. From here, more wells were brought in, but the big Texas oil revolution began at a well-called Lucas No. 1. It was here, In Spindle top, Beaumont, where Capt. Anthony F. Lucas drilled the well that would produce 94 percent of the state’s production at the time and produce more than 17 million barrels of oil [7]. Now, 114 years later, Texas has given up another oil field play that will revolutionize the industry. This play is named Eagle Ford Shale. Figure 1 shows where the shale outcrops

Natural gas is one very important fossil fuel and from its various uses, its numbers have continued to dwindle. Supply and demand has taken a toll on this very precious commodity. Ordinary vertical drilling of natural gas has ceased to produce much and this once prevalent method may eventually end up becoming obsolete. In the 1990’s a different method that was being used, but wasn’t common, caught some attention and is called horizontal hydraulic fracturing or fracking for short. Since the method of fracking was first used in 1940, it has gradually changed and is now combined with a new strategy of drilling horizontally. This new way of drilling helps to reach vast amounts of previously inaccessible gases and oils that are stuck in shale. According to oil industries Devon energy, Chesapeake, and Halliburton’s estimates, around 827 million cubic feet of untapped gases and oils are under the U. S. but may not be as easily accessible as once thought (Mooney 80-85).

A new player -at least in the United States- is entering in the game with a lot of enthusiasm among some of the audience, and a lot of skepticism by some others, that this unconventional player will overtake the conventional ones any time soon. Although, Big hops are held on the new player in the future. This new player is oil shale. The number estimated of oil shale in place in the US is around 4.28 trillion Barrel. An immense amount that’s even hard to imagine. Unfortunately, this amount is not 100% recoverable and the actual recoverable amount is unknown due to the lack of economic methods of recovery. The extraction of economic quantities of oil shale will be true in the near future due to

Petroleum engineers have a future full of challenges and opportunities. They must develop and apply new technology to recover hydrocarbons from oil shale, tar sands, and offshore oil and gas fields. They must also devise new techniques to recover oil left in the ground after application of conventional producing techniques.

Even though America’s production is falling, due to the cutbacks by struggling shale oil producers, they are not even yet enough to reduce the supply. According to the Energy Information Administration, global inventories are too high and they predict that it will rise a further 70000 b/d before supply and demand begin to balance out in 2017.

Smart waterflooding has recently proven more effective in improving the contemporary recovery processes through the manipulation of the salinity and compositions of the injected water. Different approaches have been tested by various research groups to evaluate its effectiveness, such as brine dilution and ionic variation. The brine dilution approach, also known as low-salinity, which involves lowering of the total brine salinity, has shown tremendous improvement in oil recovery from core experiments using clay-rich sandstone rocks in the range of 5-30% oil originally in place (OOIP) (Jadhunandan and Morrow, 1995; Lager et al., 2008; McGuire et al., 2005; Tang and Morrow, 1999; Webb et al., 2005; Yildiz and Morrow, 1996). Similar improvements, between 3% and 19% OOIP, have been observed in carbonate reservoirs, though the brine dilution effects and its underlying mechanisms are more complex in carbonate than sandstone reservoirs (Austad et al., 2011; Chandrasekhar and Mohanty, 2013; Romanuka et al., 2012; Yi and Sarma, 2012; Yousef et al., 2011; Zahid et al., 2012). Essentially, this is because the bonding energy between the carboxylic component of oil and carbonate rocks is higher than with sandstone rocks (Awolayo et al., 2015). As a result, carbonate rocks are oil-wet, though not all, instead they are usually mixed-wet subject to the nature of the rock mineral surface, oil properties, and their interactions (Anderson, 1986; Donaldson et al., 1969; Morrow, 1990). It is the

The U.S. Department of Energy divides unconventional oil into four types: heavy oil, extra heavy oil, bitumen, and oil shale. Some analysts also include gas to liquids, processes for converting natural gas to oil and coal to liquids, processes for converting coal to oil in the unconventional oil category. These unconventional oil-processing techniques widen the use of

A lot Scientists and oil field experts have been collecting facts and scientific evidences to try to predict the period at which peak oil will occur. Two of the scientists working toward this discovery are Colin J. Campbell and Jean H laherre. Those two scientists wrote an article about the aftermath s of the 1970 's oil embargo sppured reachees over the decline of oil, which resulted in erroneous conclusions due to various factors (78). In order to truly cast light on the issue of oil decline, Campbell and Laherrère merged a variety of techniques which comprise the examination of “the decline of aging fields” and “the diminishing returns on exploration in larger regions”, the extrapolation of the size

Use SCBEU units at bitumen and oil sand sites to ‘extract and upgrade’ at the site. The SCBEU unit would replace much of the current oil sand solvent extraction washing process and does not require solvent recovery or disposal (4,5,9,10,11,12,25,28). [This case will be developed in this proposal using the Arroyo Grande Bitumen site near Edna, CA. (26,27,28)]

The paper introduces how selecting a methodology for enhanced oil recovery methods depends on good planning includes selecting the applicable EOR process, Characterizing the reservoir, defining parameters of the engineering design, accomplish field tests as needed , studying economic, and completing with a plan to achieve the project expectations. However this paper focus on non-thermal EOR methods and starts with a description of the EOR methods and explain their differences, then followed with explanation of how each method work to improve displacement efficiency ,after that screening criteria for enhanced oil recovery methods, and systematic decision analysis approach for selecting an alternative to improve reservoir recovery efficiency.

Great number of shipping companies specialize in bulk commodity transportation, and crude oil refers to major liquid bulk cargo type. Demand of downstream users and supply in upstream sector impacts the work of shipping companies. The aim of the report is to examine the link between supply and demand of crude oil. This report presents description of crude oil, its downstream users, processing and utilization, regarding corresponding literature, statistical data and maps.

In recent years, several Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) projects have proven effective for the recovery of heavy oil and bitumen and solvent assisted projects have shown positive indication of improved performance. The important factor that controls the performance of Solvent Assisted SAGD is the solvent type, injection ratio, injection strategy and operating pressures. This process reduces the effective Steam-Oil Ratio (SOR) of SAGD. However, this comes at a cost as a part of the injected solvent is retained in the reservoir and lost in terms of economics. The smaller the cost, the better are the economics of the process. Most of the studies carried out in the Petroleum World are based on optimizing few design parameters, but in this study we would be discussing the optimization of operating parameters.