Petroleum hydrocarbons reserves

If we take into account less accessible petroleum and gas reserves or those locked up in the form of tar sands, oil shale, or methane hydrates, our overall hydrocarbon reserves could be even 3-5 times higher. This would give us a century s supply, whereas our coal reserves may stretch to two or three centuries. Despite this more favorable outlook, it is necessary to point out the existing close relationship between our ever-increasing overall energy needs and our hydrocarbon sources essential in a technological society. 

Petroleum is also versatile. It contains all the commercially important hydrocarbons, such as those that make up gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, motor oil, heating oil, tar, and even natural gas. Using fractional distillation (Section 12.1), oil refineries can convert one type of petroleum hydrocarbon to another, thereby tailoring their output to fit consumer demand. Furthermore, petroleum contains much less sulfur than does coal and so produces less sulfur dioxide when burned. So, despite its vast coal reserves, the United States has a royal thirst for petroleum, the king of fossil fuels, consuming about 20 million barrels each day. This is about 11 liters per U.S. citizen per day. 

Two countries, Canada and Venezuela, hold over 40% each of the total extraheavy hydrocarbon reserves. Alberta tar-sands fields in western Canada, particularly the mammoth Athabasca deposit, contain over 250 billions tons of bitumen which has to be produced by surface mining because it is not fluid under reservoir conditions, owing to the cold climate and the low depth (100—150m). Because of relatively adverse conditions, only 40 billion tons can be recovered by current technology. The Orinoco Oil Belt in eastern Venezuela contains a staggering 200 billion tons of extraheavy crude oils, from which 40 billion ton reserves can be tapped by widespread oilfield teehniques. Other reserves are found in countries of the former USSR, USA, and China. These figures are to be eompared with Saudia Arabia s 36 billion tons of eonventional erude oil reserves and South Afriea s eoal reserves whieh are equivalent to 37 billion tons of petroleum. 

The decrease in petroleum and natural gas reserves has encouraged interest in and discovery and development of unconventional sources of these hydrocarbons. Principal alternatives to conventional petroleum reserves include oil shale (qv) and tar sands (qv). Oil shale reserves in the United States are estimated at 20,000 EJ (19.4 x 10 Btu) and estimates of tar sands and oil sands reserves are on the order of 11 EJ (10 x 10 Btu) (see Tarsands Shale oil). Of particular interest are the McKittrick, EeUows, and Taft quadrangles of Cahfomia, the Asphalt Ridge area of Utah, the Asphalt, Kentucky area, and related geographic regions. 

Figure 13-23. Recommended pulse level for acceptable pipe vibration (assumes adequate pipe support and anchors). (Used by permission Everett, W. S. Hydrocarbon Procession and Petroleum Refiner, V. 43, No. 8, p. 117, 1964. Gulf Publishing Company. All rights reserved.)...

Our complex modern life style was made possible by the discovery and refining of fossil fuels, fuels that are the result of the decay of organic matter laid down millions of years ago. The natural gas that heats our homes, the gasoline that powers our automobiles, and the coal that provides much of our electrical power are fossil fuels. Vast reserves of petroleum, the source of liquid hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline and coal, exist in many areas of the world. However, although large, these reserves are limited, and we are using them up at a much faster rate than they can be replaced. 

The aromatization of liquefied petroleum gases (LPG) has been investigated for more than a decade due to its economical and strategic importance for the exploitation of natural gas reserves and valorization of light hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum refining. Commercially, these reactions using gallium modified ZSM-5 zeolite catalysts are known as Cyclar process, developed jointly by UOP and BP [1]. 

The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and the World Petroleum Congress (WPC) developed a probabilistic hydrocarbon-resource classification scheme, that takes into account the probability with which a reserve can be produced (SPE, 2007) 4 but such a probabilistic assessment is also subject to a potential level of misinterpretation.5 Finally, as for resources, very few estimates exist, and those estimates that do exist are also subject to considerable uncertainty and the speculative character is even more pronounced than for reserves.6 BGR (2003) refers to resources as those quantities that are geologically demonstrated, but at present... 

The physical processes by which natural gas liquids are recovered include phase separation, cooling, compression, absorption, adsorption, refrigeration, and any combination of these. Obviously the definition already stated excludes refinery light volatiles produced by the destructive decomposition of heavy petroleum fractions and it also excludes liquids that may be produced synthetically from natural gas. These distinctions are of economic importance in considering our basic energy reserves. Both the refinery volatiles and the synthetic liquids represent conversion products from other hydrocarbons and the conversion is usually attended by a considerable loss. Thus it has been stated that only about 47% (17) of the energy of natural gas is realized in the liquid hydrocarbon products of the Fischer-Tropsch type of synthesis. 

Many of the feedstocks for the chemical industry, especially aromatic hydrocarbons, were originally obtained as by-products from the carbonization of coal. (1,2) However, nowadays, most of these chemical feedstocks are derived from petroleum. Nevertheless, it is probable that, within the next few decades, the shortage of world reserves of petroleum will mean that BTX will once again have to be produced from coal, as will ethylene. It is, therefore, appropriate to examine ways in which these materials can be produced from coal the present investigation was designed to study the formation of BTX and ethylene by the thermal cracking of coal-derived materials from the NCB coal liquefaction/hydrogenation processes. (3)... 

At the present time, the industrial production of benzene and its homologs is implemented by coal carbonization, dehydrocyclization of the usual paraffin hydrocarbons and dehydrogenation of cyclohexane hydrocarbons with catalytic reforming of directly distilled gasoline fractions. The petroleum refining industry is the main source for meeting the demand for benzene and its reserves can fully meet the increasing demand for this compound. 

Oil (also referred to as petroleum) is a complex liquid mixture of organic substances, principally of hydrocarbons containing five to sixteen carbon atoms. Most crude oil, once removed from a well, is sent by pipeline to a refinery, where it is distilled to separate it into gasoline, heating oil, diesel oil, and asphalt. The use of catalysts during the refining process increases the yield of gasoline. In 2001, 25.7 billion barrels of oil were used worldwide, with estimated reserves of 1.05 trillion barrels. (One barrel contains 159 liters.)... 

Large-scale demonstration of the SRC-II process is currently being pursued as the next step in establishing the capability for the conversion of our high-sulfur coal reserves into a spectrum of hydrocarbon products to displace imported petroleum. 

This type of process can theoretigally be used to treat any gaseous, liquid or solid feed. In practice, however, it is reserved for the conversion of the cheapest raw materials such as hea 7 hydrocarbons (especially fuel oilX and possibly, in the future, petroleum residues (asphalts), coal and biomass (wood). In this case, moreover, the conversion is usually called "gasification. ... 

When considering the higher hydrocarbons present in natural gas it is probably best to recall that a continuum exists in oil and gas reservoirs from almost pure methane to heavy petroleum oils and waxes. In general, hydrocarbon deposits do not span to the extremes higher hydrocarbon free natural gas is not commonly accounted although there are some very large natural gas deposits which comprise almost entirely methane . Thus many oil reserves have considerable quantities of associated gas and most gas reserves have associated with them light oil (condensate) deposits. 

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