Oil production and its importance for the global economy

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The phrase "oil production" has long been firmly established in the world lexicon and to a large extent has become a symbol of the modern era. Today, this product of the earth's interior, along with its eternal companion - natural gas, is practically the uncontested basis of world energy.

The fact that the reserves of this unique combustible substance are irreplaceable adds to the severity of the problem. The reason for most wars of the past and present centuries is precisely oil production, which sometimes turns from a tough competitive economic struggle into armed clashes of various scales and intensity.

In addition, in the past two decades, passions have been fueled by numerous authoritative analysts who frightened the world community with gloomy forecasts that oil reserves on the planet will last for a maximum of fifty years. But, despite this, today the production of oil in the world is almost equivalent to its use. And the stocks of this super-valuable product do not even think to be exhausted.

So what is this"apple of discord"? Oil is, from the point of view of chemistry, a natural oily liquid, consisting of various hydrocarbons of the most diverse molecular structure, on which, in fact, the grade of “black gold” and the quality of the product depend. Oil molecules can be long, branched, short, closed in rings or multi-ring carbon atomic chains.

In addition to carbon, oil also contains oxygen, sulfur and nitrogen compounds. True, in very small quantities. In total, oil can contain up to a thousand different components. This most complex in its structure and the most valuable product for the energy industry accumulates in layers of porous rocks, which are called reservoirs.

The best reservoirs, a kind of natural reservoirs, are layers of sandstone, enclosed in a shell of impermeable rocks (various types of clay and shale), which prevent the leakage of product from this natural reservoir. Accordingly, in such conditions, oil production is greatly facilitated.

Due to its incredible energy intensity and extremely high transportability, this gift of the earth's interior has taken a leading place in the energy industry since the beginning of the twentieth century. With the development of science and technical disciplines, oil has received the widest application in almost all spheres of human activity.

It is also interesting that the cost of oil production is much lower than, say, coal. But its energy value atthis is disproportionately higher. It is difficult to find a product on our planet that would play such a grandiose role in the development of human civilization as "black gold".

The technology of oil production directly depends on the geological features of the field and the individual conditions of the product occurrence. The beginning of field development is always preceded by geological exploration and an assessment of the economic profitability of oil production. Currently, oil production is carried out by the flowing method, pump-compressor, gas lift, as well as the method of hydrodynamic modeling and many others.