The Discovery Of Ekofisk Oil Field

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.

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

Even with advanced technology at our fingertips, there is the potential for errors which could lead to oil spills. If a spill occurred in this region, the effects could be detrimental to the ocean. Oil and gas industries have plenty of experience and history of preventing oil spills, but they have “little experience in containing and cleaning up oil spills” (“Oil”). With the possibility of polluting the water, the plan for Arctic drilling loses the votes of all environmentalists, a group that is not to be trifled with. If authorization to drill in this region relied upon the approval of the environmentalists, it could be nearly impossible because of their strong lobbying power. The drilling is also viewed as a diversion to the country’s real dilemma, which is its disproportionately high rate of oil use. Americans guzzle up over twenty-five percent of the world’s total oil consumption. The United States should be working on making vehicles more fuel efficient so that a gallon of oil goes a long way rather than sucking the earth dry of all its oil. This fact, by itself, is seen as a more pertinent problem on which the country should focus instead of increasing available production. Another reason against the drilling in the Arctic region is that, even if the drilling is approved, there may not be as large yield as expected. All the statistics about how much

This report illustrates a geological review of a play within the South Brae oilfield and determines the potential of reservoirs within this area. It is hard to predict and provide ability for oil companies to license an oilfield before drilling therefore it is dependent upon several core sections available to investigate petrographically the northern North Sea. Cores and petrophysical data extracted from blocks 16/7a-A9, 16/7a-A17 and 16/7a-A21 related to licenses in block 16/07a found in the South Viking Graben area are provided and analysed in order to resolve whether exploration licenses should be purchased and the possible drilling of an exploration well.

As technology evolved, offshore drilling moved progressively into deeper water and farther away from oceanfront. In 1958, Richfield Oil Company developed the first drilling man-made island in Rincon where there was a substantial amount of oil was found. With the mounting pressure and high demand to produce more oil and gas, geologists studied the anticlinal trends and discovered the abundance of oil productive in Rincon Island extended underneath the Santa Barbara Channel.

September 5, 1927 marked a turning point in the history of oil exploration. Before then, to assess the composition of subsurface rocks to find oil pay-zones, scientists had to rely on core samples brought up from boreholes. These were highly unreliable and drilling companies frequently missed oil zones. Conrad Schlumberger had the idea of running an electrical probe into the drilled borehole to measure resistivity through the formation. This first log taken in the Alsace region of France was a simple hand-plotted graph, but it effectively aided engineers to “view” what was inside the

Presuming that a country has a coast it can use for drilling, excavating oil from depths of up to a mile is nowhere near effortless. In addition to common oilrig accidents, fires and spills, there are a plethora of problems that oil riggers can encounter including severe weather storms (like hurricanes) and inexperience in the remote oceans depths. Oilrigs are being used even deeper in the ocean creating new environmental and engineering problems. Dr. Joseph A. Pratt of the University of Houston, highlights the problems riggers encountered when drilling for oil in the Canadian sector of the Beaufort Sea; conditions were

There has been much controversy when it comes to oil companies in the Arctic over the past few years. The oil industry has invested heavily in the development of Alaska’s Arctic natural resources and Shell has invested $3 billion to purchase leases and prepare for exploratory drilling in the Beaufort and Chuckchi seas (WWF, 2010). Between 2008 and 2010 Imperial Oil Ltd., British Petroleum, Chevron and Exxon Mobil purchased offshore exploration leases in the Canadian Beaufort Sea and the Canadian government continues to sell offshore exploration licenses for Arctic energy exploration (Noble et al., 2012).

Even though offshore oil drilling may increase the national budget of a nation, it destroys the environment in return by contaminating water. If oil spills are not prevented, than humans and animals will be killed by drinking the contaminated water. When oil is drilled from under the ocean, other substances including mercury, arsenic, and lead are also brought up into the water. This is serous because these substances are all fatal to sea creatures. Seismic waves are used to find oil underwater, but they confuse and harm many different sea

Borenstein, S. (2015), discussed the findings of the investigation. The investigative team concluded that the blowout preventer which malfunctioned had many failures. In addition,

The Beauly field was discovered in 1998 and was first put on production in 2001 by Talisman Energy (UK) Ltd. It is found on the North Sea block of UK and is situated about 250 Kilometers on the Northeast side of Aberdeen Scotland. Moreover, it is deemed to be among the smallest marginal fields of North Sea. The Paleocene basin that arises on the upper portion of the Lista Formation is the hydrocarbon bearing zone of the field and is also classified as a member of Mey Sandstone. Therefore, as no fluid samples were found on the well of Beauly discovery, it was assumed that the oil is similar to that of the neighboring Balmoral Field (5% wax content and

Petroleum companies spent millions and developed a new technique that can drill in isle, its name is Offshore Oil Platforms. The first used for platforms was constructed in 1897 at California, and after that, oil prospectors pushed out into the ocean, first on piers and then on artificial islands. In 1928, a Texan oilman was the first time to use it to drilling in wetlands. Oil rigs floating cities, employing and housing hundreds of people those who can extract the oil from the isle, and also, they can drill up to 4,000

Influenced to take in account in 2010 that the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe was inevitable, has convinced me to question why such a devastating event could not be averted. This had influenced me to commit myself to an EPQ regarding chemical damage from oil spills as well as doing wider reading and work experience, which has further facilitated me to advance my prospects in this fascinating field of engineering and greater appreciate the work of chemists. By doing a vast amount of research, I have concluded on how BP sacrificed safety over productivity. Such is a concept I believe encapsulated the reason for the failure of 2 separate blow-out preventers where multiple scenarios had not been scrutinised for weaknesses. The significance of successful

On March 4, 1998, near Pitkin, Louisiana, a Bulk Third stage separator in a Facility owned by Sonat Exploration co. exploded, causing around $200,000 worth of damage to equipment and resulted in 4 deaths. The process utilised two wells, where one was located 2 miles (3.2kms) away. In order for ideal production, the pipelines needed to be purged to remove the air as the air was purged it was unable to escape to the atmosphere, resulting in over-pressurisation within the tanks which were unaccounted for, resulting in rupturing of the tank, releasing flammable material which in present with any ignition source ignited resulting in a large fireball.

The Deepwater Horizon was one of the largest offshore oil-drilling rigs in the world. During its more than nine years of service, all of which were under lease to the British Petroleum Company, numerous inspections were conducted by the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS). The exact number of inspection cannot be verified due to lack of proper recordkeeping and supporting documentation. The number of inspections has varied between eighty-three and eighty-eight, with as many as forty-eight being conducted since January, 2005. (Kunzelman & Burke, 2010). One of the safety violations documented during an inspection was on the blowout valve that failed causing the fireball that ignited the drilling platform. The question arises as to