Oil and natural gas are naturally occurring chemicals that are made up of

just two elements -- carbon and hydrogen. The class of chemicals based
on carbon and hydrogen are called hydrocarbons.

The simplest hydrocarbon, methane, is made up of one carbon atom and

four hydrogen atoms. Other hydrocarbons like octane and octadecane
have more complicated structures. Plastics are made of molecules called
polymers that are very long chains of hydrocarbons.

How Are Oil/Natural Gas Formed?

Stage 1 - All of the oil and gas we use today began as microscopic plants
and animals living in the ocean millions of years ago. As these
microscopic plants and animals lived, they absorbed energy from the sun,
which was stored as carbon molecules in their bodies. When they died,
they sank to the bottom of the sea. Over millions of years, layer after
layer of sediment and other plants and bacteria were formed.

Stage 2 - As they became buried ever deeper, heat and pressure began to
rise. The amount of pressure and the degree of heat, along with the type
of biomass, determined if the material became oil or natural gas. More
heat produced lighter oil. Even higher heat or biomass made
predominantly of plant material produced natural gas.

Stage 3 - After oil and natural gas were formed, they tended to migrate
through tiny pores in the surrounding rock. Some oil and natural gas
migrated all the way to the surface and escaped. Other oil and natural gas
deposits migrated until they were caught under impermeable layers of
rock or clay where they were trapped. These trapped deposits are where
we find oil and natural gas today.

Oil and natural gas reserves are found in many parts of the world. In the
past, demand was low and reserves were easy to find. In fact, the first
users of oil depended on surface seepage for their supplies. However, as
demand has increased, all the easy-to-find oil has been used.

Today, oil exploration takes place in some of the most challenging places
on earth. We are now looking for new oil reserves thousands of feet under
the ocean and in areas of climatic extremes. (You’ll find more
information on these technologies under "Exploration and Production."

35
We don't have to worry about running out of oil or natural gas any time
soon.

At our current rate of use, we have oil and natural gas reserves to last 60-
90 years. And while the total amount of oil and natural gas isn't
increasing, our ability to find and extract oil and natural gas from new
sources expands almost every day!

We now produce natural gas from buried coal seams, oil and natural gas
from deep deposits located miles beneath the surface of the earth, and in
the deep ocean, hundreds of miles offshore and in water depths greater
than 10,000 feet. (You’ll find more information on these technologies
under “Exploration and Production.”)

Finding economical ways to extract oil from coal tars and oil shales could
provide supplies for hundreds of years.

The oil and natural gas industry is also investing in alternative energy
such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass to make these potential
energy resources more reliable and affordable to meet the growing need
for energy.

When a reservoir of oil or gas is discovered under the ground, and

reservoir engineers and drilling engineers are employed to tap that
reservoir, often, they inadvertently damage it. Formation damage is an
undesirable operational and economic problem that can occur during
the various phases of oil and gas recovery from subsurface reservoirs
including production, drilling, stimulation techniques and work over
operations. The formation of a reservoir can be damaged by unforeseen
rock, fluid, particle interactions etc and alterations caused by reservoir
fluid, flow, and stress conditions. For example, the chemicals that the
engineers have injected into the reservoir, the drilling mud used in
drilling, or even by stress from the drill bit itself may cause formation
damage. Control and remediation of formation damage are among the
most important issues to be resolved for efficient exploitation of
petroleum reservoirs and cost management. Formation damage seems
to be inevitable and whether formation damage can be prevented,
removed economically, or must be accepted as the price for drilling and
producing a well will depend upon many factors. In this paper a general
characteristics of formation damage during various stages of oil
36
exploration are discussed.
Reservoir formation damage during various phases of oil and gas
recovery- an overview Available from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287511067_Reservoir_forma
tion_damage_during_various_phases_of_oil_and_gas_recovery-
_an_overview [accessed Nov 25 2017].

At its base, petroleum is a fossil fuel, which means it is derived from the
remains of organic material. In other words, petroleum results from a
number of chemical reactions that occur to material that was once alive.
In most cases, liquid petroleum was once zooplankton or algae that
settled to the bottom of a sea or lake and was then buried under sediment.
The sediment ensured that no oxygen was able to reach the decaying
organic matter and this set the stage for the formation of oil.

In most cases, the organic matter goes through several changes that take
thousands or millions of years. As sediment continues to pile up and
increase pressure on the organic matter, it is first changed into a waxy
solid called kerogen. In fact, this material is currently being mined in
many “fracking” processes because it can, through chemical conversion,
be made into liquid petroleum and natural gas.

Kerogen is formed in a process called diagenesis, the chemical form of

which is outlined in the following diagram.

Essentially, heat and pressure break down organic compounds like humin
(not human) and various other organic acids, lipids, proteins, and
carbohydrates to form long hydrocarbon chains called geopolymers.
These geopolymers are the basis of kerogen. Diagenesis is a critical
mechanism in the formation of coal and is just the first of several
processes necessary to convert solid hydrocarbon to liquid petroleum.

The addition of greater heat is necessary to convert kerogen to liquid or

gaseous hydrocarbons and the process takes time. The combination of
high temperature and pressure is necessary to carry out the endothermic
process known as hydrocarbon pyrolysis. It is sometimes referred to as
cracking as well.

37
Hydrocarbon pyrolysis is irreversible, which means that once a liquid
hydrocarbon is formed, it is not converted back into solid form. This is
why oil deposits can exist below the surface for millions of years
unchanged.  Liquid hydrocarbons are really just formed by breaking
longer chains. It is a general rule in chemistry that the larger a molecule
is, the more likely it is to be solid and the smaller a molecule is, the more
likely it is to be a liquid or gas. Long hydrocarbon chains are solid, while
medium chains (5 – 25 carbons long) are liquid. Smaller chains (less than
5 carbon atoms), tend to be gases. That is why gasoline at 7 or 8 carbons
is a liquid while methane, with only one carbon atom, is a gas.

Versions of cracking are used in industry to create everything from

charcoal to carbon fiber to biofuels. The process is often used in oil
refineries to breakdown the less valuable heating oil molecules (25
carbons per chain on average) into smaller, more valuable 7 and 8 chain
molecules that can be sold as gasoline.

The Importance of Oxygen

Oxygen is critical to many processes and its absence is absolutely critical

to the formation of hydrocarbons. When oxygen is present, several things
can happen. At the surface, when organic material is first laid down, the
presence of oxygen means the presence of bacteria that can quickly
consume the decaying material before it has a chance to be buried by
sediment. This is why most petroleum deposits were once at the bottom
of a sea or lake, often one with very low oxygen content, where sediment
had time to accumulate before too much decay could occur in the
presence of oxygen.

If oxygen is present, besides derailing the early stages of kerogen

formation completely, it can also lead to the formation of acids and other
molecules rather than strict hydrocarbon. These are usually detrimental to
the formation of hydrocarbon and can even reverse formation that has
already occurred.

Finally, levels of oxygen that are not high enough to prevent hydrocarbon
formation can still be a problem Low levels of oxygen can lead to the
buildup of toxic nitrogen oxide compounds as well as sulfuric and
sulfurous acids. All these act as contaminants in petroleum, making it
more expensive and difficult to refine.

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Natural Gas

Natural gas is simply methane and can be associated with oil fields or
found in its own deposits. In either case, natural gas can be thought of as
the last product of a chain of cracking reactions. Methane is a single
carbon atom with four hydrogen atoms. It is the simplest, smallest
hydrocarbon and thus cannot be broken down further.

Reservoirs made only of natural gas have occurred in one of two ways.
Either the natural gas has leaked from another petroleum deposit that
contains other hydrocarbons or all of the hydrocarbons in the deposit
have been converted to methane, leaving few if any other hydrocarbons.
High temperatures and pressures are necessary for natural gas formation.
As a general rule of thumb, the lower the pressure and temperature, the
heavier the hydrocarbon will be. Natural gas is only found near the
surface if it has escaped from a deeper well.

Methane is also commonly produced by bacteria, making it rather unique

among petroleum products (though there are limited instances in which
bacteria have been shown to produce things like butane). The bacteria
that produce methane are known as methanogens, and can produce
methane directly from organic material under anoxic (oxygen free)
conditions. These are the bacteria that cause methane production in
landfills. Some natural gas may be formed this way during early stages of
petroleum formation, but most is likely lost to the atmosphere if there is
not a solid layer of sediment to trap it.

Oil and natural gas together make petroleum. Petroleum, which is Latin
for rock oil, is a fossil fuel, meaning it was made naturally from decaying
prehistoric plant and animal remains. It is a mixture of hundreds of
different hydrocarbons molecules containing hydrogen and carbon that
exist sometimes as a liquid (crude oil) and sometimes as a vapor (natural
gas).

How is Petroleum Formed?

Oil and natural gas were formed from the remains of prehistoric plants
and animals—that’s why they’re called fossil fuels. Hundreds of millions
of years ago, prehistoric plant and animal remains settled into the seas
along with sand, silt and rocks. As the rocks and silt settled, layer upon
layer piled up in rivers, along coastlines and on the sea bottom trapping
the organic material. Without air, the organic layers could not rot away.
Over time, increasing pressure and temperature changed the mud, sand

39
and silt into rock (known as source rock) and slowly “cooked” the
organic matter into petroleum. Petroleum is held inside the rock
formation, similar to how a sponge holds water.

Over millions of years, the oil and gas that formed in the source rock
deep within the Earth moved upward through tiny, connected pore spaces
in the rocks. Some seeped out at the Earth’s surface, but most of the
petroleum hydrocarbons were trapped by nonporous rocks or other
barriers. These underground traps of oil and gas are called reservoirs.
Contrary to popular misconception, reservoirs are not underground
“lakes” of oil; they are made up of porous and permeable rocks that can
hold significant amounts of oil and gas within their pore spaces. Some
reservoirs are hundreds of feet below the surface, while others are
thousands of feet underground.

How is Petroleum Found?

From ancient times through the early 1900s, finding oil and gas was
largely a matter of luck. Early explorers looked for oil seeps at the
surface, certain types of rock outcrops and other surface signs that oil
might exist below ground. This was a hit-or-miss process. But science
and technology quickly developed to improve the industry’s ability to
determine what lies below the ground.

Geologists study rocks on the Earth’s surface and underground. They

make a map of the rocks where they think oil and gas might be found.
Engineers use this geology map to drill a well under the Earth’s surface.
If successful, the well will bring a steady flow of oil and gas to the
surface. After the drill rig is removed, a pump is placed on the well head.
An electric motor drives a gear box that moves a lever. The lever pushes
and pulls, forcing the pump up and down, and creates a suction that draws
up the oil.

Three factors affect the amount of oil or gas that can be recovered from a
known reservoir: rock properties, technology and economics. While the
industry cannot change the properties of the rock, it can develop new
techniques to remove more oil from the rock. The industry has also made
significant advances to enhance recovery from known reservoirs in the
US and abroad, adding to the reserves base.

40
Where is Petroleum Found?

The oil and natural gas that power our homes, businesses and
transportation are found in small spaces — called pores — between
layers of rock deep within the Earth. Many offshore wells, for example,
are drilled in thousands of feet of water and penetrate tens of thousands of
feet into the sediments below the sea floor. The oil is then transported to
refineries and distilled into fuel or base chemical products.

More than 100 countries produce petroleum. Most of those countries

produce both oil and natural gas; a few produce only natural gas. Natural
gas is usually found near petroleum.

Many factors can affect oil production, such as civil unrest, national or
international politics, adherence to quotas, oil prices, oil demand, new
discoveries and technology development or application.

The larger subsurface traps are the easiest deposits of oil and gas to
locate. In mature production areas of the world, most of these large
deposits of oil and gas have already been found, and many have been
producing since the 1960s and 1970s. The oil and gas industry has
developed new technology to better identify and access oil and gas:

 Improved seismic techniques (such as 3D seismic) have increased

the odds of correctly identifying the location of smaller and more
difficult to find reservoirs.
 New drilling techniques can intersect a long, thin reservoir
horizontally first that then turns vertically making an “L” shape.
This enables the oil or gas from the reservoir to be recovered with
fewer wells.

World oil production comes from more than 800,000 oil wells. More than
500,000 of these wells are in the United States, which has some of the
most mature producing basins in the world. On average, an oil well in the
US produces only 10 B/D, compared with 248 B/D in Russia, 3,077 B/D
in Norway, and 5,762 B/D for a well in Saudi Arabia. Comparable data
for natural gas wells are not readily available.

There are still many oil and gas reserves left to be discovered and
produced. Future discoveries will be in deeper basins and in more remote
areas of the earth. Advanced technologies also can be used to locate small
reservoirs found in existing oil and gas areas.

41
Natural Gas: Oil Byproduct, Valuable Resource

Natural-gas use is growing across all economic sectors. Natural gas burns
cleaner than oil or coal, and this environmental benefit has encouraged its
use. While decades ago natural gas was seen as an unwanted byproduct of
oil and may have been wasted, its value has been recognized today. Most
natural gas is distributed by pipelines, which is a limiting factor for
remote resources that are not near the major consuming markets. But
there is considerable development of technology to convert natural gas to
liquids to enable more widespread transportation.

For more information on shale gas and horizontal drilling, see Modern
Shale Gas: A Primer from the U.S. Department of Energy.

New Exploration Methods for Oil and Gas

In the unrelenting search for more oil and gas, innovation plays an
unquestionable role. As large oil and gas fields become increasingly
difficult to find, geologists, geophysicists and engineers employ new
technologies, such as seismic, to uncover resources that just 10 years ago
were unimaginable. Seismic is a technology that bounces sound waves
off rock formations deep below the surface of the Earth to provide
explorers with a picture of the subsurface, often revealing locations where
oil and gas may be trapped. The technology of finding oil has even
incorporated 3D visualization tools from Microsoft’s Xbox game
console! The system will help geoscientists examine and interact with 3D
models of the Earth.

In order to process the massive amounts of information collected from

seismic surveys, mathematicians, physicists and other scientists are
constantly developing new computer algorithms to find complex patterns
that enhance our understanding of the land beneath us. If we are to
continue finding new fields hidden deep inside the Earth, breakthroughs
in computer processing power and data management are necessary.

How Do We Get to the Oil?

The oil and natural gas we use today have been trapped deep inside the
Earth for millions of years. Although it is tempting to think of oil and gas
reservoirs as large pools and wells with giant straws that suck the fluid to
the surface, oil and gas is actually locked inside the rocks like water in a
sponge. Just like the small holes in a sponge that collect and hold water,
there are tiny spaces or pores in rocks that fill with oil and gas. For the

42
past 100 years, oil and gas was extracted from rocks with small pores that
were still big enough that the fluids flowed easily. If you were a tiny
molecule of oil, flowing through these rocks would be like driving on a
highway in the express lane. During this time period, geologists and
engineers knew about other large quantities of hydrocarbons trapped in
rocks with even smaller and more complex pores, but were unable to
harness the resource—the oil and gas flowed too slowly or not at all from
these rocks. Instead of driving on a large and fast highway, flowing
through these rocks would be like driving on a small two-lane road with
many stoplights and intersections. Conventional gas wells drilled into
these formations were considered uneconomic since the gas locked in the
rock would flow out of the tiny pores in the rock at such low rates. This
picture changed, and changed in a big way, with the advent of stimulated
horizontal wells.

Drilling Location

Before the technology advances of the past few decades, the best place to
put a well was directly above the anticipated location of the oil or gas
reservoir. The well would then be drilled vertically to the targeted oil or
gas formation. Technology now allows the industry to drill directionally
from a site up to 5 miles (8 km) away from the target area. Engineers can
even target an area the size of a small room more than a mile
underground! This directional drilling technology means that the industry
can avoid placing wells in environmentally sensitive areas or other
inaccessible locations yet still access the oil or gas that lies under those
areas.

Drilling Process

In simplified terms, the drilling process uses a motor, either at the surface
or downhole, to turn a string of pipe with a drill bit connected to the end.
The drill bit has special “teeth” to help it crush or break up the rock it
encounters to make a hole in the ground. While the well is being drilled, a
fluid, called drilling mud, circulates down the inside of the drill pipe,
passes through holes in the drill bit and travels back up the wellbore to
the surface. The drilling mud has two purposes:

 To carry the small bits of rock, or cuttings, from the drilling

process to the surface so they can be removed.
 To fill the wellbore with fluid to equalize pressure and prevent
water or other fluids in underground formations from flowing into
the wellbore during drilling.

43
Water-based drilling mud is composed primarily of clay, water and small
amounts of chemical additives to address particular subsurface conditions
that may be encountered. In deep wells, oil-based drilling mud is used
because water-based mud cannot stand up to the higher temperatures and
conditions encountered. The petroleum industry has developed
technologies to minimize the environmental effects of the drilling fluids it
uses, recycling as much as possible. The development of environmentally
friendly fluids and additives is an important area of research of the oil and
gas industry.

Even with the best technology, drilling a well does not always mean that
oil or gas will be found. If oil or gas is not found in commercial
quantities, the well is called a dry hole. Sometimes, the well encounters
oil or gas, but the reservoir is determined to be unlikely to produce in
commercial quantities.

Technology has increased the success rate of finding commercial oil or

gas deposits with less waste and a smaller impact on the surface. While
conventional oil and gas wells are typically vertical, contacting only a
limited amount of the target reservoir rock, horizontal wells look like a
large “L.” The long horizontal wellbore, sometimes more than 4,000 feet
long, contacts a large portion of the productive reservoir. The surrounding
rock formation is then hydraulically fractured to release the oil or gas
trapped inside. In hydraulic fracturing, massive trucks pump thousands of
gallons of fluid into the rock at very high pressures in order to force the
rock to crack. These cracks are then propped open with sand to allow a
highly conductive passage through which the oil or gas can flow.

In shale fields, as many as 15 major fractures are placed along the

horizontal wellbore, serving to connect all those small two-lane roads to
wide boulevards and even larger, faster highways. Currently, the limits of
this technology are being pushed back every day in order to unleash giant
gas resources. In the future, this technology will have to go even farther
to allow more fractures and longer horizontal wells. Advances in this area
will undoubtedly transform our energy landscape.

Drilling Costs

Once a company identifies where the oil or gas may be located, it then
begins planning to drill an exploratory well. Drilling a well is expensive:
Shallow offshore wells or deep onshore wells can cost more than $15
million each to drill!

44
Getting the Oil Out

Locating a suitable site for drilling is just the first step in extracting oil.
Before drilling can begin, companies must make sure that they have the
legal right to drill, and that the impact of drilling on the environment is
acceptable. This can take years. Once they finally have the go ahead,
drilling begins. The exact procedure varies, but the idea is first to drill
down to just above where the oil is located. Then they insert a casing of
concrete into the newly drilled hole to make it stronger. Next, they make
little holes in the casing near the bottom, which will let oil in, and top the
well with a special assembly of control and safety valves called a
“Christmas tree.” Finally, they may send down acid or pressurized sand
to break through the last layer of rock and start the oil flowing into the
well. (Source: Oil and Natural Gas, Society of Petroleum Engineers,
Richardson, TX.)

In the petroleum industry, production is the phase of operation that deals

with bringing well fluids to the surface and preparing them for their trip
to the refinery or processing plant. Production begins after drilling is
finished.

The first step is to complete the well – that is, to perform whatever
operations are necessary to start the well fluids flowing to the surface.
Routine maintenance operations, such as replacing worn or
malfunctioning equipment – known as servicing – are standard during the
well’s producing life. Later in the life of the well, more extensive repairs
– known as workovers – may also be necessary to maintain the flow of oil
and gas. The fluids from a well are usually a mixture of oil, gas, and
water, which must be separated after coming to the surface. Production
also includes disposing of the water and installing equipment to treat,
measure, and test the oil and gas before they are transported away from
the well site.

So production is a combination of operations: bringing fluids to the

surface; doing whatever is necessary to keep the well producing; and
taking fluids through a series of steps to purify, measure, and test them.
(Source: Fundamentals of Petroleum, Petroleum Extension Service, The
University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX)

Ultra-deep Water Operations

A major obstacle to producing tomorrow’s oil and gas resources is

operation in ultra-deep water. The frontier of oil exploration continues to

45
be offshore, over 10,000 feet/3,048 meters below sea level. Operating in
this environment requires billions of dollars and boundless technical
expertise. Safely and economically bringing oil to the surface requires
experts in everything from underwater vehicles that install subsea
equipment to structural engineers that make sure the huge floating
platforms can withstand large waves. Operators must be able to hit a
seemingly tiny target that they cannot see over 30,000 feet/9,144 meters
under the surface—all while floating on waves. To put this in perspective,
it is a bit like a quarterback trying to throw a football to his wide receiver
more than 100 football fields away! Innovation will continue to drive this
frontier into new territory.

Environmental Care

We depend on oil and gas for a host of products we use in our everyday
lives, and we will continue to depend on them for years to come. And
while oil and gas production may contribute to the greenhouse effect on
the environment, the industry is doing its part to offset those effects while
still meeting the world’s petroleum demands.

Already great strides have been made to ensure that oil and gas producers
make as little impact as possible on the natural environments in which
they operate. This includes drilling multiple wells from a single location
or pad to minimize damages to the surface, employing environmentally
sound chemicals to stimulate well production, and ensuring a seamless
transition from the wellhead to the consumer. While conventional oil and
gas operations have been streamlined to maximize human safety and
environmental protection, development of unconventional resources like
Canada’s oil sands and Colorado’s oil shale will require major
technological innovations.

Exploitation of these resources will be important in meeting tomorrow’s

energy demand, but current methods consume large quantities of water
and depend on expansive surface operations. How can the vast potential
locked in these resources be tapped in a more efficient, environmentally
sound manner? Research today focuses on inserting heaters into rock
formations below the surface to convert the heavy hydrocarbons into
liquid that can then be drained and produced by more conventional oil
wells. Such a process would dramatically reduce the impact of these
unconventional sources on the surface. However, the next generation of
engineers and scientists must further refine this technology or generate
new ideas in order to tackle these problems.

46
No one can know for certain how much oil and gas remains to be
discovered. But geologists sometimes make educated guesses.

The total amount of oil or gas in the reservoir is called original oil, or gas.
For a specific reservoir, engineers estimate this amount using information
about the size of the reservoir trap and properties of the rock. Some of the
original oil and gas deposited millions of years ago has been discovered,
while some remains undiscovered—the target of future exploration.

Discovered (or known) resources can be divided into proved reserves and
prospective or unproved (probable and possible) resources.

 Proved reserves are the quantities of oil or gas from known

reservoirs that are expected to be recoverable with current
technology and at current economic conditions.
 Prospective resources are those that may be recoverable in the
future with advanced technologies or under different economic
conditions.
The Oil & Gas Journal (OGJ) estimates that at the beginning of
2009, worldwide reserves were 1.34 trillion barrels of oil and
6,254 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas. The oil estimate is 16
billion barrels of oil higher than in 2007, reflecting additional
discoveries, improving technology and changing economics.

Continental North America and much of continental Europe have already

been explored heavily, and any new discoveries are likely to be small.
But many areas of the globe are largely unexplored, and large new
deposits are waiting to be found. Global hot spots that may house
significant new oil and gas reservoirs include:

 Offshore Brazil
 The Gulf of Mexico
 Alaska
 Offshore western Africa
 Russia
 Areas across Asia and the Pacific.

These are just a few of the current areas of growth. Most observers agree
that significant deposits of oil and gas remain undiscovered in the Middle
East.

47
The largest reserves of natural gas are found in Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Algeria, Nigeria,
Venezuela and Iraq.

At current consumption levels, the remaining reserves represent 44.6

years of oil and 66.2 years of natural gas. Does this mean that the world
will be out of fossil fuels in 50 years or so? That theory has been around
since the 1970s. In fact, the figures for years of remaining reserves have
remained relatively constant during the past few decades as the industry
has balanced consumption with newly discovered oil and gas deposits.

History of Petroleum

280 to 345 million years ago – Carboniferous period; fossil fuel

formation begins.

Around 3 million years ago – Stone Age; Vast underground oil reserves
seep to the surface in sticky black pools and lumps, called bitumen.
Hunters use bitumen (also called pitch or tar) to attach flint arrowheads to
their arrows.

70,000 years ago – Prehistoric people discover that oil burns with a
bright, steady flame. The first oil lamps are made by hollowing out a
stone, filling it with moss or plant fibers and setting the moss on fire. Oil
lamps remained the main source of lighting until the gas lamp invention
in Victorian times. The Greeks improved lamps by putting a lid on the
bowl.

6,500 years ago – People living in marshes added bitumen to bricks and
cement to waterproof their houses from floods. They soon learned that it
could be used to seal water tanks, waterproof boats (now known as
caulking) and glue broken pots.

1780s – Swiss physicist Aime Argand (1750-1803) realizes that by

placing a circular wick in the middle of an oil lamp and covering it with a
chimney to improve airflow, the lamp would burn 10 times brighter than
a candle, and also cleanly. This was the greatest breakthrough in lighting
since the time of the Greeks. It revolutionized home life, making rooms
bright at night for the first time in history.

1950-present – Oil becomes our most used energy source because of

automobiles.

48
1970 – Production of petroleum (crude oil and natural gas plant liquids)
in the US lower 48 states reaches its highest level at 9.4 million barrels
per day. Production in the lower 48 states has been declining ever since.

1972 – Deep-well drilling technology improvements lead to deeper

reservoir drilling and to access to more resources.

1973 – Several Arab OPEC nations embargo, or stop selling, oil to the
United States and Holland to protest their support of Israel in the Arab-
Israeli “Yom Kippur” War. Later, the Arab OPEC nations added South
Africa, Rhodesia and Portugal to the list of countries that were
embargoed.

Arab OPEC production was cut by 25 percent, which caused some

temporary shortages and helped oil prices to triple. Some filling stations
ran out of gasoline and cars had to wait in long lines for gasoline.

Countries such as France and Japan, which had relied heavily on oil for
electric generation (39% and 73%, respectively) invested in nuclear
power due to the oil crisis. Today, nuclear power supplies about 80% and
30% of the electricity in those countries, respectively.

The OPEC oil embargo and the resulting supply shock suggested that the
era of cheap petroleum had ended and that the world needed alternative
fuels. The development of hydrogen fuel cells for conventional
commercial applications began.

1988 – Ethanol begins to be added to gasoline for the purpose of reducing

carbon monoxide emissions.

2003 – Ethanol begins to grow rapidly as the oxygenating factor for

gasoline in the US.

Flex-fuel vehicles are introduced. These vehicles can run on straight

ethanol, straight gasoline or a blend of the two. Today, the majority of
new cars sold in Brazil are flex-fuel.

Today – In the future, water will replace fossil fuels as the primary
resource for hydrogen. Hydrogen will be distributed via national
networks of hydrogen transport pipelines and fueling stations. Hydrogen
energy and fuel cell power will be clean, abundant, reliable, affordable
and an integral part of all sectors of the economy in all regions of the US.

49
Uses for Petroleum

Not only does petroleum provides fuel to run our vehicles, cook our food,
heat our homes and generate electricity, it is also used in plastics,
medicines, food items, and countless other products, from aspirin to
umbrellas, and yes—lipstick! Transportation needs use 66% of all
available petroleum to fuel cars, buses, trucks and jets. That means 34%
of oil is used for all the other items that make our daily lives easier. Most
people have no idea how often they come in contact with things made
from oil or natural gas.

Here are some of the many items made from petroleum

Artificial Hearts
Aspirin
Balloons
Bandages
Blenders
Cameras
Candles
CD Players
Clothing
Compact Discs/DVDs
Computers
Containers
Crayons
Credit Cards
Dentures
Deodorant
Digital Clocks
Dyes

Fertilizers
Food Preservatives
Footballs
Furniture
Garbage Bags
Glasses
Glue
Golf Balls
Hair Dryers
Hang Gliders
House Paint

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Ink
Insecticides
Life Jackets
Lipstick
Luggage
Medical Equipment
Medicines

MP3 Players
Pantyhose
Patio Screens
Perfumes
Photographic Film
Photographs
Piano Keys
Roller Blades
Roofing
Shampoo
Shaving Cream
Soft Contact Lenses
Surfboards
Telephones
Tents
Toothpaste
Toys
Umbrellas

Meeting Higher Demands for Petroleum

In areas of the world that are still developing, businesses and individuals
are demanding greater mobility for themselves and their products. World
vehicle ownership is projected to increase from 122 vehicles per thousand
people in 1999 to 144 vehicles per thousand in 2020, with the largest
growth occurring in developing nations. The total consumption of liquid
fuels worldwide is expected to increase by 25% from 2006 to 2030.

World population is currently around 6 billion people but is expected to

grow to approximately 7.6 billion by 2020. That will mean a huge
increase in the demand for transportation fuels, electricity and many other
consumer products made from oil and natural gas.

Advanced technology helps the oil and gas industry find the energy
resources the world needs. Technology advances enable more accurate

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drilling and extraction of a higher percentage of oil and gas from each
field, extending the life of each well. Advanced technology also allows
engineers to tap sources that were once impossible, such as deep-sea
fields and oil and gas in very deep reservoirs. Together, these new
sources of oil and gas will replace production from existing wells as they
decline and help to assure adequate oil and gas supplies to meet world
energy needs for the foreseeable future.

Reducing the Environmental Impact of Fossil Fuel Consumption

Substantial work will be required to address the impact of oil and gas
consumption, notably the emission of carbon dioxide as a major
byproduct. Among the proposed solutions to this problem is the
sequestration, or storage, of carbon dioxide in old oil and gas fields.
Storage of carbon dioxide from power plants and other industrial facilities
would require collecting and processing the gas, compressing it to high
pressures, and then injecting it into the small spaces between rock grains
deep below the surface. Here, the key challenge is capturing and storing
the CO2 emissions on a sustainable scale in a  reliable and cheap manner.

Hydrocarbon Formation

1.1. The Origin of oil and gas - Organic matter

Petroleum was formed from organic matter. The organic mater was
deposited in a marine environment and remained buried under anoxic
conditions for 100-400 millions years. Over the years, layers of silt, sand
and other sediments settled over the buried organic matter. The increase
of pressure and temperature slowly transformed the organic matter into
hydrocarbons (kerogen, oil, gas). Also, over those millions of years
various plate tectonics (continents drift over the underlying mantle) and
other geological phenomena resulted in the rearrangement of oceans and
continents; thus, we encounter oil in both onshore and offshore locations.

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The deposition of organic matter took place as:

 Marine organisms (zooplankton and algae) that settled to seabed

at depths where oxygen concentration is very low to decompose
the organisms.
 Organic mater from nutrient-rich regions such as ancient river
deltas. Those large amounts of organic material were covered by
subsequent sediments faster that decomposition could take place.

Notes

 Organic matter was buried before decomposition takes place. The

lack of oxygen (anoxic conditions) is an essential factor since it
prevents the decomposition of the organic matter which is then
transformed to oil.
 Subsequent layers cause the increase of pressure and
temperature and the transformation of the organic matter to
hydrocarbons (maturation)

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1.2. Geological conditions

1.2.1. Source Rock is the rock where petroleum formed. Source rocks are
sedimentary rocks and typically shales (90%). The source rock was form
along with deposition of the organic matter; thus, organic matter was
abundant at the early age of a source rock.

As mentioned earlier, hydrocarbons are created from organic matter

buried in an anoxic marine environment. However, a few more conditions
are required for hydrocarbons to accumulate and form a petroleum
reservoir.

1.2.2. Maturation is the conversion of organic matter to hydrocarbons.

The first stage is the formation of kerogen. As the pressure and
temperature is the source rock is further increase, kerogen converts to
petroleum. If the temperature is raised above 130C for even a short period
of time, crude oil will convert to gas. Initially the composition of the gas
will show a high content of C4–C10 components (wet gas
and condensate), but with further increases in temperature the mixture
will convert to light hydrocarbons (C1–C3, dry gas).

An average geothermal gradient is about 3C per 100 m of depth.

Oil window: 60–120 °C, 2-4 km

Gas window: 120–180 °C, 4-6 km

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Temperature, is the first most important factor for thermal maturation and
determines the resultant hydrocarbon type. Time is the second most
important factor for thermal maturation. Petroleum geologist use
maturation indicators to evaluate potential hydrocarbon accumulations.

1.2.3. Migration takes place after maturation. The hydrocarbons from the
impermeable source rock move to the porous reservoir rock.

1.2.4. Reservoir Rock: is a porous rock that contains petroleum. Reservoir

Rocks are typically sandstones and carbonates.
Sandstone reservoir are of higher quality because the primary mineral,
SiO2 (quartz) is strong and stable (hard to react).
Carbonate reservoir are formed from from coral, shell and other biogenic
deposits.

Cap Rock: To locate and explore oil and gas prospects it is important to
correctly assess the subsurface geology.

To sum up, for a hydrocarbon reservoir formation it is necessary:

1. A basin were sedimentation took place
2. Deposition of organic matter in anoxic conditions, formation of source
rock.
3. Through increase of temperature and pressure source rock must have
reached
maturation
4. Migration of the generated hydrocarbons into a porous type of
sediment, the reservoir rock.
5. Creation of trap for the migrating hydrocarbons to accumulate.

oil shale: When kerogens are present in high concentrations in shale, and
have not been
heated to a sufficient temperature to release their hydrocarbons, they may
form deposits.

Further Reading:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PDOD_FEnNk

Oil and Gas Traps

All oil and gas deposits are found in structural or

stratigraphic traps.  You may have heard that oil is
found underground in “pools,” “lakes,” or “rivers.” 

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Maybe someone told you there was a “sea” or “ocean” of oil
underground.  This is all completely wrong, so don’t believe everything
you hear.

Oil Moving Through Pore Space In Sandstone

Most oil and gas deposits are found in sandstones and coarse-grained
limestones.  A piece of sandstone or limestone is very much like a hard
sponge, full of holes, but not compressible.  These holes, or pores, can
contain water or oil or gas, and the rock will be saturated with one of the
three.  The holes are much tinier than sponge holes, but they are still
holes, and they are called porosity.

The oil and gas become trapped in these holes, stays there, for millions of
years, until petroleum geologists come to find it and extract it.

When you hold a piece of sandstone containing oil in your hand, the rock
may look and smell oily, but the oil usually won’t run out, and you can’t
squeeze sandstone like a sponge!   The oil is trapped inside the rock’s
porosity.

Oil Formation and Oil Movement

The very fine-grained shale we talked about previously is one of the most
common sedimentary rocks on earth.  In many places, thousands upon
thousands of feet of shale are stacked up like the pages in a book, deep
underground.  It is not unusual to have layers in the earth’s crust made up
mostly of shale that are 4 miles thick.  These shales were deposited in
quiet ocean waters over millions of years time.

During much of the earth’s history, the land areas we now know as
continents were covered with water.  This situation allowed tremendous
piles of sediment to cover huge areas.  The oceans may have left the land
we now live on, but the great deposits of shale and sandstone remain deep
underground….right under our feet!

The Tiny Gigantic Kingdom

In the deep ocean, far from land, about

the only sediment deposited is the fine-
grained clastic rock known as shale.But
what about the oil and gas?  For the

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answer, we need to move to the ancient oceans that once covered almost
all of the earth.

Tiny Microfossils Make Up the Sea-Floor Ooze

A lot of other material is deposited along with the clay or mud-sized

sediments.  We often think of sharks and whales as being the kings of the
deep oceans.  Actually, there are other animals that have established giant
kingdoms in the sea…the largest and most impressive kingdoms of all! 
These animals are the various kinds of microscopic creatures….both plant
and animal.  Most of them would fit on the head of a pin. They are tiny,
but there are uncountable trillions of them.   When these creatures die,
they sink to the bottom and become part of the  sediments there that will
eventually turn into shale.

The animals die by the trillions and rain down on the ocean floor all the
time.  And since the beginning of life on earth, they have been living their
exciting lives in the ocean, dying, sinking to the bottom, and becoming
part of the once-living matter that is part of most shale rocks.

It is the trillions of tiny animals that make up most of the gunk (the
scientific name for this gunk is “ooze”) deposited on the ocean floor.  It’s
a very fine-grained goop containing a lot of organic material mixed with
the clay-sized particles that form shale.  It is called organic-rich shale.

Later, when thousands of feet of organic-rich shales have piled up over

millions of years, and the dead animal bodies are buried very deep (more
than two miles down), an amazing thing happens.   The heat from deep
inside the earth “cooks” the animals, turning their bodies into what we
call hydrocarbons……oil and natural gas.

At first, the oil and gas only exist between the shale particles as extremely
tiny blobs, left over from the decay of the tiny animals.   Then, the

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 intense pressure of the earth
squeezes the oil and gas out of the shale, and the oil and gas fluids gather
together in a porous layer and move sideways many miles.  On their way,
they may meet up with other traveling oil or gas fluids.

Finally, the oil and gas may become “trapped” in a rock formation like
sandstone or limestone….a hydrocarbon trap. The oil and gas stay there,
under tremendous pressure, until the petroleum geologist comes looking
for it.  Without a trap, the geologist has no place to drill.  All oil and gas
deposits are held in some sort of trap.

The Two Types of Traps

Structural Traps

These traps hold oil and gas because the earth has been bent and
deformed in some way.  The trap may be a simple dome (or big bump),
just a “crease” in the rocks, or it

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may be a more complex fault

trap like the one shown at

the right.  All pore spaces in the rocks are filled with fluid, either water,
gas, or oil.  Gas, being the lightest, moves to the top.  Oil locates right
beneath the gas, and water stays lower.

Once the oil and gas reach an impenetrable layer, a layer that is very
dense or non-permeable, the movement stops.  The impenetrable layer is
called a “cap rock.”

Stratigraphic Traps

Stratigraphic traps are depositional in nature.  This means they are formed
in place, often by a body of porous sandstone or limestone becoming
enclosed in shale.  The shale keeps the oil and gas from

escaping the trap, as it is

generally very difficult for fluids (either oil or gas) to migrate through
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shales.  In essence, this kind of stratigraphic trap is surrounded by “cap
rock.”

Here are four traps.  The anticline is a structural type of trap, as is the
fault trap and the salt dome trap.

Four Types Of Structural and Stratigraphic Traps

The stratigraphic trap shown at the lower left is a cool one.  It was
formed when rock layers at the bottom were tilted, then eroded flat.  Then
more layers were formed horizontally on top of the tilted ones.  The oil
moved up through the tilted porous rock and was trapped underneath the
horizontal, nonporous (cap) rocks.

Another Stratigraphic Trap

This hole  has been drilled into a sandstone that was deposited in a stream
bed.  This type of sandstone follows a winding path, and can be very hard
to hit with a drill bit!  The plus is that old

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 stream beds make
excellent traps and reservoir rock, and some of these fields are tens of
miles long!

This type of sandstone is usually enclosed in shale, making this a

stratigraphic trap.

Just because you drill for oil or gas does not mean that you will find it! 
Oil and gas reservoirs all have edges.  If you drill past the edge, you will
miss it !  This might explain why your neighbor has a well on his land,
and you do not!

Stratigraphic Problems When Drilling

When you drill, you may find a

producing reservoir very near
the surface. But many other
things can happen:

You might drill into a reservoir

that has been depleted (all the
oil and gas removed) by another

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well.  There may be a new infill reservoir between two wells that could
be developed with a third well.  Or one that was incompletely drained. 
Maybe if you drill a little deeper you might hit a deeper pool reservoir! 
You might be able to back up and produce a bypassed compartment.  The
petroleum geologist has to think of all these things when planning a new
well!

Structural Problems When Drilling

Finally, structures in the earth can give the PG

many challenges.   Look at this diagram. 
Imagine you first drilled the hole on the left
into the green layer which represents a nice oil
and gas-bearing rock.  YES!  You have a great
well, producing lots of oil and gas!

Then you drilled your second hole to the east

(right) of the first one.  What happened to that
hole? (answer below)

Answer:  The oil reservoir has been split in two by the fault, which is
nothing but a place in the earth where rock layers break in two.   The
arrows on the diagram show that the rocks moved DOWN on the LEFT
side of the fault and UP on the RIGHT side of the fault.   This created a
GAP in the oil field……right where you drilled your second hole! 
Incredibly bad luck!  Or, bad seismic!  Your second hole is a DRY
HOLE.

Some diagrams from “A Primer of Oil and Gas Production” and

“Pennsylvanian Sandstones of the Mid-Continent”

Oil and gas traps

Oil and gas traps, sometimes referred to as petroleum traps are below
ground traps where a permeable reservoir rock is covered by some low
permeability cap rock. This combination of rock can take several forms,
but they all prevent the upward migration of oil and natural gas up
through the reservoir rock. Once oil and natural gas are in the reservoir
rock, they continue to migrate upwards through the pore spaces of the
rock until blocked by some sort of seal with a cap rock. [1] The low

62
permeability cap rocks are generally shale or low permeability sandstones
and carbonate rocks.[2]

There are two major categories of traps, and are classified based on how
the petroleum accumulates. The two main groups are structural traps
and stratigraphic traps.[2] For a more in-depth description of the overall
structure of oil and gas deposits, see oil and gas reservoir.

Figure 1. Diagram showing the structure of several different types of oil

and gas traps.[3]

Structural Traps

These traps are types that form as a result of some structural deformation
- a bend or dip - of rock. These traps take on several forms and shapes as
a result of different types of deformation. This deformation tends to take
place over tens or hundreds of millions of years after sediment that
creates the seals and rocks themselves have been deposited. [1] In these
traps, the pores of the reservoir rock contain oil, gas, or water. Gas moves
up in the trap as it is the lightest, with oil below it and water at the
bottom. The cap rock prevents upward migration of these fluids.

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Anticline Traps

These types of traps are formed by a folding of rock. Specifically, a

sandstone bed covered with low permeability shale is folded into a trap
that contains petroleum products. Hydrocarbons are trapped in the peak
of this fold.[2] An anticline trap is shown in the upper-left of Figure 1.
Most anticline traps are created as a result of sideways pressure, folding
the layers of rock, but can also occur from sediments being compacted.
For more information on anticline traps, click here.[4]

Fault Traps

These types of traps are formed when reservoir rock is split along a fault
line. Between the walls of the split reservoir, clay traps oil and prevents it
from leaving the trap.[4] Other times there exists a pressure differential
across the two sides of the fault that prevents the fluids from migrating. [2]
A fault trap is shown in the upper-right of Figure 1. Although faulting is
common in many petroleum fields, traps that result from faulting alone
are not very common. Generally speaking, faulting creates some other
type of structure that creates the main trap.[2]

Salt Domes

Salt dome traps are formed as a result of below ground salt - which is less
dense than the rock above it - moving upwards slowly. This upward
migration of the salt can deform and break up rock along the way. [4] The
process of this salt deforming rock is known as salt tectonics, and take
place over hundreds of millions of years. [2] Oil and gas that flows through
the reservoir rock will come to rest when it reaches the salt dome and is
then trapped. A salt dome trap is shown on the lower left of Figure 1.

Stratigraphic Traps

These traps are formed as a result of the deposition in sedimentary rocks.

When the sediment that creates the reservoir rock is deposited in a
discontinuous layer, the seals are created beside and on top of the
reservoir. In some cases, these seals are made of impermeable or low
permeability shale deposited around the reservoir, blocking the oil and
gas inside. The seals themselves may also be source rocks. [1] A
stratiographic trap is shown on the bottom right of Figure 1.

There are two main types of stratigraphic traps that are classified by when
changes occur relative to the sedimentation process. Primary stratigraphic

64
traps result from changes that develop during the sedimentation process.
These are generally structural changes that arise as a result of
discontinuous deposition of sediment. Secondary stratigraphic traps result
from changes that develop after sedimentation has occurred. These
changes can involve changes in porosity of the rock that lead to formation
of a cap-like rock.[1]

References

 Geo Info. (December 23, 2015). Introduction to Petroleum Geology

[Online]. Available:
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/faq/energy/petroleum/petroleum_geology_intr
o.pdf
  KAU. (December 22, 2015). Petroleum Traps [Online]. Available:
http://www.kau.edu.sa/Files/0054337/Subjects/types%20of%20oil
%20traps.pdf

  Wikimedia Commons. (December 22, 2015). Oil Traps (Online).

Available:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Oil_trap
s.svg/2000px-Oil_traps.svg.png

4.  David Oser. (December 23, 2015). Petroleum Geology [Online].

Available:
http://davidosergeology.tripod.com/petroleomgeology/index.htm
l

Authors and Editors

Jordan Hanania, Kailyn Stenhouse, Jason Donev

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