Barrel of oil

For example, the many deepwater fields located in the Gulf of Mexico are of Tertiary age and are comprised of complex sand bodies which were deposited in a deepwater turbidite sequence. The BP Prudhoe Bay sandstone reservoir in Alaska is of Triassic/ Cretaceous age and was deposited by a large shallow water fluvial-alluvial fan delta system. The Saudi Arabian Ghawar limestone reservoir is of Jurassic age and was deposited in a warm, shallow marine sea. Although these reservoirs were deposited in very different depositional environments they all contain producible accumulations of hydrocarbons, though the fraction of recoverable oil varies. In fact, these three fields are some of the largest in the world, containing over 12 billion barrels of oil each ... 

If the reservoir pressure remains above the bubble point then any gas liberated from the oil must be released in the tubing and the separators, and will therefore appear at the surface. In this case the producing gas oil ratio (Rp) will be equal to R. i.e. every stock tank barrel of oil produced liberates Rs scf of gas af surface. 

The legs of the platform can be used as settling tanks or temporary storage facilities for crude oil where oil is exported via tankers, or to allow production to continue in the event of a pipeline shut down. The Brent D platform in the North Sea weighs more than 200,000 tonnes and can store over a million barrels of oil. Topside modules are either installed offshore by lift barges, or can be positioned before the platform is floated out. 

Continuing dependence on fossil fuels raises several major ethical issues. Ethical questions concerning our responsibilities to future generations arc raised by the fact that fossil fuels are a nonrenewable energy source, so that eveiy barrel of oil or ton of coal burned today is forever lost to future generations. Further, the by-products of fossil fuel combustion pose hazards to both present and future generations. 

United States and the world (Figure 1), despite perceptions that it has been replaced by other sources. In 1997 production ofboth coal (23.2 quadrillion Btus, or about 4.6 billion barrels of oil) and natural gas (19.5 quadrillion Btus, or about 3.9 billion barrels of oil) on an energy equivalent basis exceeded U.S. domestic oil production (13.6 quadrillion Btus, equivalent to about 2.7 billion barrels, or 3.1 billion barrels of oil if natural gas liquids are included). Coal production in the United States nearly doubled from 1970 to 2000 (from about 600 million tons to about 1 billion tons produced annually). Meanwhile, petroleum consumption at 18.6 million barrels of oil per day is near the all-time high of 18.8 million barrels of oil per day in 1978. Net U.S. petroleum imports (8.9 million barrels of oil per day) in 1997 were worth 67 billion and exceeded U.S. petroleum production (8.3 million... 

The energy equivalent of one barrel (159 liters) of crude petroleum is about 6.6(10) joules. Table 1 shows that the production of a metric ton (1,000 kg or 2,200 pounds) of steel requires about four barrels of oil a ton of aluminum requires about forty barrels... 

Each day, tropical oceans absorb the energy equivalent to 250 billion barrels of oil. If less than one-tenth of 1 percent of this energy could be converted into electricity it would supply twenty times the amount of electricity, consumed daily in the United States. Unfortunately, this energy is spread out over 23 million square miles of ocean, providing a large volume of slightly heated water. 

The definitions above are an abbreviated version of those used in a veiy complex and financially significant exercise with the ultimate goal of estimating resei ves and generating production forecasts in the petroleum industry. Deterministic estimates are derived largely from pore volume calculations to determine volumes of either oil nr gas in-place (OIP, GIP). This volume when multiplied by a recovery factor gives a recoverable quantity of oil or natural gas liquids—commonly oil in standard barrels or natural gas in standard cubic feet at surface conditions. Many prefer to use barrels of oil equivalency (BOE) or total hydrocarbons tor the sum of natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGL), and oil. For comparison purposes 6,000 cubic feet of gas is considered to be equivalent to one standard barrel on a British thermal unit (Btu) basis (42 U.S. gallons). 

It is well known that reseive estimates made early in the development of a field are often wi ong and that there s a 50 percent change in estimated ultimate recovery in many fields during the first ten years. In addition, the average field lifetime has been a decade longer than initially expected in the North Sea. If you believe in reserve growth, you would conclude that there will not be a petroleum crisis anytime soon. If, on the other hand, you believe that reserves have been overstated and you make negative revisions to reserve estimates, there rvill be a crisis soon. Current known petroleum reserves (proved + P50 probable) in the world are 1.44 trillion barrels of oil, 5,845 trillion cubic feet of gas, and 80 billion barrels of natural... 

NOTE Prices hove been converted into Btus assuming 5,800,000 Btus per barrel of oil, 3,412,000 Btus per 1000 kWh, 1,000,000 Btus per 1000 mcf of natural gas, and 22,500,000 Btus per short ton of coal. A Btu is about of a food calorie or a kilocalorie, 1,000 Btus contain the energy content of a candy bar. 

All fossil fuels are considered unsustainable because someday they will reach a point of depletion when it becomes uneconomic to produce. Petroleum is the least sustainable because it is the most finite fossil fuel. Although levels of production are expected to begin declining no later than 2030 (U.S. production peaked in 1970), the U.S. and world resei ves could be further expanded by technological advances that continue to improve discoveiy rates and individual well productivity. The extraction of oils found in shales (exceeds three trillion barrels of oil equivalent worldwide) and sands (resei ves of at least two trillion barrels worldwide) could also significantly increase reserves. The reserves of natural gas are comparable to that of oil, but natural gas is considered a more sustainable resource since consumption rates are lower and it burns cleaner than petroleum products (more environmentally sustainable). 

Oil spreads on water to form a film about 100 nm thick (two significant figures). How many square kilometers of ocean will be covered by the slick formed when one barrel of oil is spilled (1 barrel = 31.5 U.S. gal) ... 

Energy and bottle An interesting historical (1950s) example is the small injection blow molded whiskey bottles that were substituted for glass blown bottles in commercial aircraft continues to be used in all worldwide flying aircraft. At that time, just in USA, over 500 x 1012 Btu or the amount of energy equivalent to over 80 x 106 barrels of oil was reduced. 

Oil shales are a large, virtrtally imtapped source of hydrocarborrs. U.S. reserves represent several hundred billion barrels of oil and... 

The ultimate amount of U.S. oil that can be recovered by "implemented technology," technology that presently exists in at least the proven field test stage, is estimated to be 14.5 billion barrels. Using "advanced technology," technology that might be conceivably developed before 2013, adds another 13 billion barrels of oil to the estimate, for a total of 27.5 billion barrels. A comparison of the distribution of ultimate recoveries by method is also shown. 

Researehers at the University of Kentueky estimate that, at the current rate of plasties waste disposal in the USA, over 80 million barrels of oil could be produced. Unfortunately, only 3.7% of plastics waste was recycled out of 22 million tons collected in 1990 the rest was incinerated or ended up in landfills. Details are given. 

In addition, the production of fertilizers from molecular nitrogen is very energy-intensive. In the United States alone, hundreds of millions of barrels of oil are used every year to produce fertilizers. Finding ways to produce noncontaminating and inexpensive fertilizers without huge energy investment is a major challenge to today s chemical industry. 

At the beginning of the 3 Millennium, the proven oil reserves amounted to 1.035 X 10 barrels of oil, of which roughly 2/3 are in the Middle East. The world consumption of oil in 1999 was about 27 x 10 barrels, implying that the proven reserves would be sufficient to allow the use of oil at the present consumption level for another 40 years at most. 

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