Pros And Cons Of Enhanced Oil Recovery

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

In 2015, the world will face a vast amount of dilemmas; these dilemmas range from how someone is going to get their food to how they are going to cook. But the biggest dilemma of them all, is how they are going to continue to get energy to do everyday tasks. The most efficient resources are those of the nonrenewable variety. These nonrenewable resources include fossil fuels, such as coal, natural gas, and petroleum. Someday these resources will run out and will not be replenished for thousands of years. As of now, an overwhelming majority of the energy used in the world today is non-renewable. We, as civilized people, are so dependent on fossil fuels that we go through extraneous efforts to retrieve these properties. The world needs energy to function and sites that once contained vital resources are on the verge of depletion. It is inevitable that the world looks elsewhere for another resource to absorb the depleting reservoirs. One reservoir capable of withstanding the demand for oil are the tar sands located near Alberta, Canada. These tar sands are the third largest reservoir of crude oil in the world and are conveniently located just north of the United States border (About the Project). There is a wide spread debate on whether or not the crude oil produced from these tar sands should be transported via pipeline. With critical analysis of all point of views, it is without a doubt that the United States should cease their delay on

The process of making synthetic crude oil requires an enormous amount of water, especially in the separation process. Each barrel of oil requires two tons of oil sands and up to five barrels of hot water. Water is also needed along with electricity to convert it steam. The steam is pushed by steam injections making bitumen less viscous. It is quite evident that oil sands are not practical in terms of its process. Also three-quarters of the bitumen can be recovered from the sands, leaving behind 25% as waste. With the technology in our present society, oil sands are not entirely practical in terms of efficiency; however, in the future, this may change. To reflect, there are many disadvantages associated with oil sands, especially in the way it is processed.

As some of you may know, Canada is one of the world’s largest energy producers and is a principal source of US energy imports. Canada has oil sands that are unconventional, but a significant contributor to the growth of liquid fuel supply (North America). Oil sands are areas where the sand absorbed the oil. Refineries pull the oil from

II. The problem exists in northern Alberta, where large deposits of oil exist. The oil is costly to extract, but high prices have made this process viable in recent years. The environmental problems are created during the extraction process. The oil is removed from the sands by mixing it with hot water, skimming off the bitumen, and then centrifuging the bitumen (Oil Sands Centre, 2009). This process is energy-intensive, and byproducts end up in the atmosphere or in tailing ponds that threaten the local watershed. Sulfur dioxide in particular is a major pollutant that results from the process and causes acid rain. Nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds are also created in the

There are great economic opportunity for the province of Alberta as well as satisfying the global need for oil. The oil sands carry with it a lot of ethical and environmental concerns because unlike regular oil that can be pumped direction from the ground, the extraction process have proved to be dangerously hazardous to human, environment, and other biodiversity. The development of this oil sands have also caused great changes to the way of life of First Nations and well as health risks. The process of extraction starts with digging huge amount of sand-bitumen mixture from the earth’s surface and then heating with hot water to separate the sands, bitumen, and other minerals. The bitumen is kept for oil and the slurry mixture of sand, oil, water is then return to the mine. It takes about 2 tons of sands to make 1 barrel of oil and only about 75% of bitumen can be extracted from the sands. In areas where oil sands is too deep for strip mining, a process known as “in situ”, or in place, is used by drilling deep into the ground and releasing hot steam or other heat inducing technology to release the bitumen from the sands which can then be pumped out. The extraction process requires huge amount energy to run heavy machinery and to heating water and steam making the break-even cost of $57 making it much higher Saudi

This report presents information regarding the industry, the primary operator of oil and gas field properties. The industry fuels its key buyers, the Natural Gas Distribution (22121) and the Petroleum Refining (32411) industries, with crude oil and natural gas. The industry continuously battles a shortage of available oil. In addition, many major oil fields have been in use for decades, slowly waning. Currently, the industry grosses among the most profitable in the US despite these and similar obstacles. The benefits of investing here

Since Donald Trump took office as President of the United States, he has been a constant figure in the news. Earlier this month, his administration announced a plan to open U.S. coastal waters to offshore oil drilling. According to the New York Times article, the plan lifts a ban that was put in place by former President Barack Obama and gives energy companies access to billions of acres of the U.S. coastline along the Eastern Seaboard, the Artic, and the Pacific waters off California.

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

There are two methods in which oil is extracted from the ground in the Alberta oil sands, open pit and in-situ. Open pit requires large quantities of dirt to be scraped from the ground which is the fastest way to extract shallow oil sands reserves. In-situ method employs the use of steam to loosen the oil from the ground and then suck it to the surface, it is effective for deep oil sands mining. The oil sands generate an incredible amount of revenue which affect the world, the country, and Albertans. The Alberta oil sands are an important part of the global and national economy and are a real driving force. This valuable asset does not come without a cost. Mining causes great damage to the environment through large emissions it contributes

Global energy needs are at an all time high and do not appear to be tapering off in the near future. Even with all the advancements of technology and the development of alternate renewable resources, fossil fuels continue to be the leading source to facilitate these energy needs. The magnitude and effort needed to shift the world to alternative sources of energy is monumental and each has huge barriers when compared to fossil fuels (Troy 34). Traditional means of extracting oil, coal, and natural gas have historically faced scrutiny from environmentalists and lawmakers due to the various potential hazards these resources present. In truth their efforts have not been in vain; in many of the first world nations the extraction of these resources has been regulated and therefore tailored to pose as little risk to the environment as possible. Hydraulic fracturing or fracking as it is commonly called is not a new method of resource extraction but by no means would it be considered traditional. It is commonly understood that there are no completely perfect methods of extracting fossil fuels no matter their chemical or physical makeup and the same is true of fracking. There are challenges associated with the human error factor just as there are in any other types of project development; these generally surround the construction and best business practices surrounding the

Environmental 2). This water is extremely toxic and deadly to wildlife. Tailing ponds cover a very large area of land.

    At some point in our daily activities, we all draw upon a reserve of one or more of earth's natural resources, One of the most crucial of these being crude oil. It and its derivatives are used as primary sources of energy and thus, crude oil it is constantly in high demand. In order to meet this demand in the most economical fashion, oil companies have made offshore drilling into a common practice. However, offshore drilling is devastating to the environment in several ways. As a result of the equipment and methods used to extract the oil, high levels of pollution are released into the ocean, disturbing nearby ecosystems. Secondly, the high level of drilling is consistently

For instance, Rufe, who is a scientist, states that we have not developed an approach that can clean more than 3 to 5 percent of the spilled oil” (Mufson, 2012). Furthermore, In the Gulf of Mexico, although 205.8 million gallons of oil have been spilled, just 51.8 million gallons have been collected, which equals approximately 25 percent. Moreover, in order to clean the Gulf from the oil spills almost 2 million gallons of toxic dispersants were used. Unfortunately, the toxic dispersants did not truly purify the spilled oil, but fractured them into tinier particles. As a consequence, that may make the oil more harmful for some ocean animals and plants ( A Center for Biological Diversity Report, 2008). However, with the increasing of offshore oil drilling accidents, and with no solution to solve the problem efficiently. The hazardous impact is not going to affect only on animals and plants. It might affect people who depend on the polluted area for food, ecological enrichment, and entertainment ( A Center for Biological Diversity Report,

The oil and gas industries involve a high amount of documentation for both transportation as well as extraction and field services. Activities are highly regulated, and subject to oversight from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the Department of Transportation (DoT), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of the Interior (DoI). That said, the process of regulation is trending toward a more digitized system, with organizations like FERC having their own submission portals that implement a “fill-in-the-blank” platform to complete forms. However, not all forms have yet been converted to digital submission even in agencies with online portals, and other agencies still remain reliant on