Conventional oil

No method has been devised to estimate with complete accuracy the amount of cmde petroleum that ultimately will be produced from the world s conventional oil and gas fields. Degrees of uncertainty, therefore, should be attached to all such estimates. These uncertainties can be expressed in several ways, the most important of which is achieved by dividing a resource into various categories. Several petroleum resources classifications have been proposed, and a comprehensive discussion of them (1), as well as the definition used in the assessment of the undiscovered resources of the United States (2), have been provided. Seven commonly used categories of resources are given here. 

D. Gautier and co-workers. Estimates of Undiscovered Conventional Oil and Gas Resources in the United States—-A. Part of the Nation s Energy Endowment, USGS Research on Energy Resources (V. E. McKelvey Eomm), Washington, D.C., Eeb. 1995. 

The thrust capacity of a magnetic bearing is limited when compared to a conventional oil bearing. Simulation of potential upset conditions... 

The abihty to recover as much as possible of the remaining two-thirds of conventional oils in known formations and to utilize ultraheavy erode deposits will become increasingly important as U.S., and ultimately worldwide, reserves of conventional crude oils are depleted. 

The investigations on boundary lubrication used to focus on the friction elements made of metallic materials, and of steel in particular. This is, of course, due to the fact that a great majority of machines are built from metal and steel, but it is also because the hydrocarbon-based oils have been proven to be an extraordinarily good lubricant for metal surfaces. Unfortunately, the conventional oils are not so effective to lubricate the components made of other materials, like ceramics, rubbers, silicon, etc., so that the study on new types of lubricants suitable for such materials has attracted great attention in recent years. 

There is some dispute among analysts as to whether world production of conventional oil will peak before the year 2020 or whether the peak will be delayed by another decade or two (Kerr, 1998), but in either case the current era of relatively cheap oil will end within several decades. A similar scenario is likely to follow for natural gas, although at a slower pace, and at a still slower pace, for coal. If our responsibilities to future generations include the relatively small problems that nuclear waste repositories may create in 10,000 years, they also include preparing for fossil fuel scarcity that will occur very much sooner. 

Solutions of TKPP were mixed with aqueous fluids commonly encountered in drilling or completion of wells. Unlike saturated zinc bromide, concentrated TKPP solutions can be mixed in any proportion with fresh water with the only result being a decrease in solution density. Similar results were obtained with conventional oil field brines containing as much as 400 parts per million polyvalent cations, mostly calcium. Saturated solutions of calcium hydroxide also can be added to TKPP in any proportion without promoting precipitation as can concentrated hydrochloric acid solutions, conventionally used for well stimulation. The acid tends to generate a slight haze as the pH is reduced from 11.5 to approximately 8 however, this haze rapidly disappears as the pH is lowered by further addition of acid. 

In Chapter 1, Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) was defined as the use of microbes in the oil wells, in situ to enhance production of oil and prolong their active life cycle. Most conventional oil recovery processes are able to retrieve only, approximately 50% of the oil at the well. Theoretically, microbes are supposed to act by either ... 

Another current development in the use of F-T chemistry in a three-phase slurry reactor is Exxon s Advanced Gas Conversion or AGC-21 technology (Eidt et al., 1994 Everett et al., 1995). The slurry reactor is the second stage of a three-step process to convert natural gas into a highly paraffinic water-clear hydrocarbon liquid. The AGC-21 technology, as in the Sasol process, is being developed to utilize the large reserves of natural gas that are too remote for economical transportation via pipelines. The converted liquid from the three-step process, which is free of sulfur, nitrogen, nickel, vanadium, asphaltenes, polycyclic aromatics, and salt, can be shipped in conventional oil tankers and utilized by most refineries or petrochemical facilities. 

Closely related to the superheating effect under atmospheric pressure are wall effects, more specifically the elimination of wall effects caused by inverted temperature gradients (Fig. 2.6). With microwave heating, the surface of the wall is generally not heated since the energy is dissipated inside the bulk liquid. Therefore, the temperature at the inner surface of the reactor wall is lower than that of the bulk liquid. It can be assumed that while in a conventional oil-bath experiment (hot vessel surface, Fig. 2.6) temperature-sensitive species, for example catalysts, may decompose at the hot reactor surface (wall effects), the elimination of such a hot surface will increase the lifetime of the catalyst and therefore will lead to better conversions in a microwave-heated as compared to a conventionally heated process. 

It was found that the first step was rate determining. When, moreover, the reaction was run with the same reaction-temperature profiles under both conventional (oil) and microwave (monomode cavity) conditions, different distributions of the intermediate (1) and final (2) products were obtained (Tab. 5.10). Indeed, the product distribution was strongly affected by microwaves when the reaction was run at 85 °C rather than 110 °C, and addition of a small amount of a polar or nonpolar solvent also affected the product distribution. In this work two solvents capable of extensive coupling (i.e. ethanol) and not coupling (i.e. cyclohexane) with microwaves were used. Addition of ethanol strongly shifted the product distribution towards the final product (2), whereas addition of cyclohexane resulted in much lower yield of 2 [34]. 

GTSC [Gas to syncrude] A process for converting natural gas to a synthetic crude oil which may be mixed with natural crude oil and used in conventional oil refineries. Based on F-T technology, but using a proprietary slurry bubble column reactor with a promoted cobalt catalyst. Developed by Syncrude Technology, Pittsburgh, PA, in the 1990s. 

Because water-based fluids do not last as long as the more conventional oil-based fluids, careful monitoring of fluids is required. In addition to the standard analyses for pH, dirt and metal fines, dissolved iron, and tramp oil, the introduction of various chemical additives has required the additional monitoring of organic amines, ammonia, rust inhibitors, water hardness, and even nitrosamlnes in some cases. 

The physical approach is not undisputable, as it does not take into account the conditions of the occurrences or of the production of the crude oil (e.g., onshore or offshore, water depths, climatic conditions, etc.). Therefore, some authors give a narrower definition of conventional oil. Campbell (2006), for instance, considers crude oil that is found under deep-water conditions (water depths greater 500 m) or in arctic regions, as well as NGL as unconventional oil. As a consequence, the remaining potential of conventional oil is estimated to be lower. 

The physical and economic or technical approaches made no big difference with respect to the oil that has been produced until now. According to the economic or technical approach - as advancing technology and rising prices will facilitate the economic production of new resources - the boundary will increasingly be shifted from unconventional oil towards conventional oil. This is, for instance, the case in Venezuela and Canada, where extra heavy oil and oil sands have already been economically produced for several years. According to the physical approach, however, this leads to a rise in the production volumes of unconventional oil. In this publication, the distinction between conventional and unconventional occurrences will be made according to the physical approach. 

Table 3.2 shows the remaining potential (the sum of reserves and resources) of conventional oil at the end of 2005, which amounts to around 1800 Gb, made up of 1200 Gb reserves and 600 Gb resources. In line with the definition in Section 3.3.1, these figures do not include unconventional oil, such as crude bitumen from oil sands production in Canada or extra heavy oil from Venezuela.11 Almost three-quarters of... 

Heavy cmde oil will not be explicitly addressed, as there are often no clear boundaries with conventional oil and extra-heavy crude oil within a heavy oil reservoir. To avoid double counting, reserves of heavy oil will not be considered either, as they are already partially or completely included in conventional or extra-heavy oil reserves (BGR, 2003). 

Resource estimates and current production According to the USGS, total resources of extra-heavy oil in place worldwide are estimated at around 1350 Gb, of which about 90% are located in the Orinoco Belt in Venezuela. It is estimated that between 240 and 270 Gb of the Venezuelan resources in place are ultimately recoverable. The synthetic crude produced from heavy oil is considered to be refined oil and is, therefore, not subject to OPEC quotas, unlike Venezuela s conventional oil production. 

Many credible analysts have recently become much more pessimistic about the possibility of finding the huge new reserves needed to meet growing world demand, and even the most optimistic forecasts suggest that world conventional oil peaking will occur in less than 25 years. 

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