Why Saudi Arabia Abqaiq Plants Facilities

The extraction of natural gas requires a borehole which is dug down to the deep shale formation. After the hole is dug, a steel pipe is inserted into the borehole where it is encased with cement on the outer perimeter of the pipe. A perforation gun is lowered into the cement-encased piping. Using an explosive, the perforation gun perforates the casing and puts initial fractures into the shale at targeted locations. The shale is fractured further by inserting fracking fluids, which consists of 98% water and sand, plus 2% proprietary fluids. The fracking fluids are pushed down into the wellbore and pressurized to 3000 psi causing the initial fracture to spread in the shale, along the shale natural fracture lines. The sand in the fracking fluids keeps the created fractures open which allows the gas from the shale pores to flow into the casing and then to the surface, where it is collected.

Texas’ history with oil starts much earlier than the 1901 Spindletop gusher. As early as 1543, there were reports of natural oil seeps along the coast of Texas which was used as both medical treatments and caulking for boats by Spanish explorers (Wooster). In 1866, the first of Texas’ oil producing wells was drilled in Nacogdoches County, however the supply and profit was not high enough to justify further development. In 1895 in Corsicana, Texas there was a minor oil find that led to the creation of Texas’ first oil refinery in Nacogdoches, Texas. Another large oil find is the East Texas Oil Field which spans 140,000 acres and is considered to be the largest oil field in the United States (excluding Alaska); this oil field has produced over 5.2 billion barrels from its 30,340 historic and active oil wells (Smith).

A process for retrieving natural gas from 7,000 feet below the earth’s surface has caused environmental concerns. Hydrofracking has been around since the 40’s but wasn’t until the 90’s where technology allowed for a vertical drill to drill horizontally into shall deep below the surface creating several bores and accessing hundreds of acres of shale. Hydrofarcking comes with its controversy, some argue that it is contaminating water sources and creating environmental concerns, while others say there is no proof of this despite many studies.

The age demographic segment of oil and gas industry is normally people in their late 40s and early 50s. There is also a group of neophytes but there are very few people with ages between the two groups. Also, most of the people in this industry are highly specialty engineers with experience and skills to make important decision about drilling. There are also other specialty people in the business sides to vision and plan the competitive strategies to compete with other companies.

Wildcat Oil has recently discovered a 500 million barrel crude oil reservoir in Kasakstan, and the firm needs a preliminary cost estimate for a feasibility study for a facility to produce the oil and for transporting this oil. Wildcat Oil has already paid the Kasakstan govt. $400M in up-front lease costs for this reservoir. Engineers predict recovery of about 300 million barrels with current technology, however the oil facilities and

[Oil production has jumped from 5.0 million barrels per day in 2008 to 7.4 million last year and is expected to average 8.5 million this year and 9.3 million next year, according to the EIA, the analytical arm of the Department of Energy.” (Koch par. 2)]

The high-pressure water that is used to extract the natural gasses through fracking also causes an

plugs have been drilled through. Now, natural gases are extracted along with the water and

locating and collecting at least about 5.7 billion barrels of oil. If the oil-producing process

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

In SAGD shown in the Figure 1.1, pairs of horizontal parallel wells separated by a vertical distance of 4-6m are drilled for one kilometer of a horizontal distance. The upper of the two wells (injection well) is used to inject steam in the formation to lower the viscosity of the bitumen. The lower one (production well) is used to collect the produced oil. The well drilled into the formation removes earth for a well (casing) to be inserted to the well bore. The well bore is then cemented to increase the stability and isolate it from underground water to prevent contamination. A smaller pipe with a number of small slits is then inserted in the reservoir.

This paper explains the idea behind the tertiary recovery method of heavy crude oil from a reservoir using the thermal recovery method of fire flooding (in situ combustion) and its processes of incorporating conditions of the crude. These heavy oils have high viscosity which requires more heat to and create less surface tension in order to allow for much better mobility. In order for this all to happen and it relies on the use of injected air and water while also utilizing those components to the advantage of thermal recovery to heat and vaporize oil and produce steam from water. This heated gas and vapor then provides a thermal push by combustion and pushing oil into the designated production well by methods of dry combustion (air injection, no water), wet combustion (air injection with water), and reverse combustion by means of injecting water and gas on opposite sides of the reservoir for the complete combustion of the whole reservoir.

As previously mentioned the project is expected to cost more than $3.7 billion and will be funded by the World Bank and the International Financial Corporation. The total costs have two major sections i.e. the Field System of more than $1.5 billion and the Export System at approximately $2.2 billion. The Field System is geared towards the development of Chad's Doba oil fields that includes the construction of related infrastructure and facilities and drilling of around 300 wells. The Export System incorporates the construction of a 670-mile, 30-inch pipeline from Chad's Doba oil fields to Kribi's Atlantic coast in

The world’s largest producer of crude oil is Russia producing more than 5.3 million barrels per day (Barden 2017). The history of Russia’s oil industry started in the 16th