Quote:
Originally Posted by JJxiv1215
It seems that only a few months ago we were making threads about how near $4 prices on gasoline had hurt our purchasing power (It was $4.30 here at one point), whether for Blu-rays, or whatnot...Now, I'm seeing $2.19 for regular-87 around my house, the lowest it has been since my freshman year in college! I'm dancing for joy when I filled up my tank for $35, when it used to take almost $58. Now, I'm not too savvy when it comes to economics - but are these prices a temporary thing?
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In New England, the cheapest around is $2.19. It seems like you all are gettng it for less where you live. Just 2 miles to the middle of town, it's about $2.34 - $2.40. Looks like I will get to keep my low mileage SUV a few years longer. I don't expect the party to last.
Rock Oil
Nature's Way
In open thermodynamic systems such as on the Earth, entropy in the system can decrease only by increasing it elseware. An example of order from disorder is by plants using solar energy called photosynthesis (6H2O + 6CO2 + Light -> C6H12O6 + 6O2). This converts and stores about 3% to 6% the sun's energy by combining simple carbon and water into more complex sugar molecules. The termporal increase in order does not equal sun's increase in entropy; so the increase of complexity, is a net loss or an increase of total entropy between all the involved systems. The process depends on solar energy and will come to a halt when the sun reaches the end of its life.
Animals that feed off plant material have celluar structures called mitochondria that use the energy stored in the plant sugar molecules to power their more highly ordered structures. Like the losses in photosynthesis, the path going from single cells to complex organisms like our own is an even greater increase in total entrophy. Level 4 predators consume 10 pounds of level 3 intermediate predators whch in turn consume 100 pounds of first order consumers which then in turn consume 1000 pounds of primary producers.
Petroleum
As mentioned before, photosynthesis in plants, algae, and some species of bacteria convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds. Around 650,000,000 years ago, a small fraction of the animal and plant life that lived and died in the sea settled to the bottom in a oxygen free environment. This kept the organic matter from completely decaying. Over time, bacteria removed chemicals such as phosphorus, nitrogen and oxygen, leaving behind mostly carbon and hydrogen. Over millions of years the gelatinous mass became covered by multiple layers of porus sand, silt and mud.
The anaerobic decay of organic material in conditions of increased temperature and pressure created rock oil which is primarily of mixtures of the said hydrocarbons; compounds of carbon, and hydrogen. It becomes a viscous oil that gets trapped in the pores of sandstone or limestone when it is subjected to pressures of 3,000 psi and temperatures from 140 to 230°F. These conditions are called the oil window which is between 7,500 and 15,000 feet. It consists of hydrocarbon chains from about C5H12 to C42H86. Most of the liquid will leak out as oil seeps, but about 10% gets trapped underground in places that are not well connected to the surface. It has taken between 50-300 million years to for most of the world's oil and gas to form. When burned in an exothermic reacton which is when when two atoms or molecules combine and release energy in the form of heat, the hydrocarbon chains plus oxygen are transformed into CO2 and H2O. Entropy in action: going from an ordered state to a more disordered one.
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Fossil Fuel History
The first oil well was dug by the Chinese in 4th centruy. The Fossil Fuel Age began with coal burning around 1700. Oil is 'discovered' in the 1850s. Edwin Drake is sent out by Seneca Oil Company and struck oil in Titusville Pennsylvania, 1859, at a depth of 69.5 feet (21 m) and produced 35 bpd. 1879, the first commercial incandescent lightbulb and at the time, 75% of US energy was still supplied by burning wood. In the 1880s, coal surpassed timber. Oil production in Pennsylvania peaked in 1891. First off-shore drilling in 1890. Untill 1908, the major use of petroleum was kerosene for lanterns. Spindeltop Texas, 1901, which was made famous by the Lucas Gusher. It eventually produced 100 kbpd causing prices to dip to 3 cents per barrel. Its production put the U.S. ahead of Russia, then the number one producer. 1921, Signal Hill (Long Beach) Field California. In the 1950s, oil surpassed coal. Ghawar Saudi Arabia, 1948 - the worlds largest - began production in 1951 and currently produces 5 mbpd (790,000 m3). Total production to 2005 was about 60 billion barrels. 1969 North Sea is tapped. 1960s Green Revolution increased use of mineral fertilizers. In 2008, oil averages $91.48 a barrel. We have burned roughly half of all global oil reserves in 125 years
Historical Moments
HISTORY OF OIL - Part 1
HISTORY OF OIL - Part 2
HISTORY OF OIL - Part 3
HISTORY OF OIL - Part 4
HISTORY OF OIL - part 5
Life of an Oil Well
Each well requires planning, drilling, completion, production, and abandonment. Of most interest here is the production part which there are three phases of oil recovery. The first or primary phase uses gravity and the natural pressure of the reservoir to push crude oil through the wellbore and to the surface. Simple interventions such as a pump-jack are added in the keep the flow rate up. About 5% to 10% of the oil in the reservoir can be extracted this way. In the secondary phase is when intervention is used to bring up the reservoir’s insufficient pressure. Gas under pressure and water is injected to drive an additional 25% to 30% of crude oil and gas to the surface wells. In the final tertiary phase, EOR, different materials are injected to improve the flow between the oil, gas and rock. There are three main methods: thermal, gas injection or chemical: With thermal methods, steam (cyclic and stimulation and flooding, 1964) is injected to heat the reservoir and thin the oil. Gas injection dilutes the oil and loosens it from the reservoir. Chemical surfactants wash out the oil. We can recorving another 20% to 30%. "Estimates [are] that by 2030 EOR will be responsible for around 20 per cent of total oil production up from only three per cent today." (
Willem Schulte)
Enhanced Oil Recovery, EOR)- Water injection, to increase the pressure in the well.
- Gas injection, to dilute and loosen the oil.
a. CO2.
b. Natural Gas.
c. Nitrogen.
- Microbes - breaks oil droplets into smaller pieces.
a. Bacterial cultures mixed with a food source.
b. Nutrients are injected into the ground.
c. Address the problem of paraffin components of the crude oil.
- Thermal - to reduce its viscosity and/or vaporize part of the oil
a. Cyclic steam injection.
b. Steam drive.
c. In situ combustion
Oil Definitions- Oil resource, the total amount of oil in place, includes producible and non-producible oil. Most of the oil typically can't be recovered.
- Oil reserve, the amount of oil that can be recovered economically with existing technology. The ratio of producible oil reserves to total oil in place is the recovery factor. This factor may rise over time if additional investment is made in enhanced oil recovery. Proven reserves have a 90% (P90) certainty of being produced. Unproven reserves where technical, contractual, or regulatory uncertainties preclude such reserves being classified as proven.
Oil Shale
Oil shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock that contains organic matter. Oil in the shale is contained within a waxy, bituminous substance called kerogen. Retorting, heating the oil shale to 650° - 700°F causes the chemical process of pyrolysis to yield a vapor. Upon cooling the vapor, the liquid shale oil—an unconventional oil—is separated from combustible oil-shale gas (wiki). Surface retorting recovers the oil shale by standard surface or underground mining and then feeding the rock into a kiln for heating. In situ retorting is done at depth by drilling a number of bore holes into the deposit and then heating the rock underground to release the oil. Estimates of global deposits range from 2.8 to 3.3 trillion barrels (450×10^9 to 520×10^9 m3) of recoverable oil (wiki)
Shale Oil, The Red Queen Syndrome
Traditional oil and gas reservoirs are naturally porous and permeable, while shale rocks are not very porous. The pore spaces have limited connectivity and may be smaller in size than the hydrocarbon molecules they contain. So the oil that is trapped is called tight oil. The liquid hydrocarbons are obtained by a process called
hydraulic fracturing (1947). Pressurized fluid of water and chemical mixtures are used to overcome confining pressure created by the load of the overlying rock strata. It creates fractures from the welbore drilled into reservoir rock formations to replicate the type permeability found in naturally productive oil and gas reservoirs. Sand called proppant is used to hold open the cracks.
(J. David Hughes, PCI), (Ezra A. Johnson).
The ERoEI is about 1.5:1 to 4:1 for shale formations such as the Bakken and Eagle Ford with the cost of drilling each well about $6-8 million. The breakeven price for the average well in the Bakken formation in North Dakota at $80 - $90/Bbl. The average well yields around 85 000 Bbls during the first 12 months of production and then experiences a year over year decline of 40%. (Rune Likvern,
TOD) The oil is not distributed equally over the whole play but exists in sweet spots. These are being drilled first, leaving lower lower quality sites for later. The current trend shows declining first-year productivity in new wells drilled since 2010 running at 25%. In order to keep production up, the number of wells will have to continue increasing at a faster rate than previously - (
Kunstler, 19 November 2012). Shale production relies on thousands of wells drilled every year. If the drilling capacity should go down, or for some reason it becomes too expensive, then the production will go down very fast
(Aleklett).
Oil on the Cartesian Plane
We can construct a Cartesian Plane were the X-axis describes the rock formation as going from tight to porous, and a Y-axis that describes oil that goes from heavy to light. The four quadrents are a follows: quadrant I is light oil that comes from porous rock; quadrant II is light shale oil the comes from a tight rock formation; quadrant III is Kerogen Shale (Oil Shale) that is heavy oil from a tight rock formation; and quadrant IV is heavy oil sands from porous rock.
Energy Return on Investment
EROI = Quantity of Energy Supplied/Quantity of Energy Used in Supply Process. An energy source that yields positive net energy has an EROI ratio of more than 1:1. Less then 1.1 is an energy sink.
Oil - 20,000Btu - EROI 100:1 - 20:1
Coal - 8,000 - 14,000Btu, EROI 40:1 - 80:1
Wood - 6,000Btu, EROI 30:1
One barrel of crude contains approximately six gigajoules (six billion joules) or about 1,700 kilowatts of energy. An individual can produve about 360,000 joules an hour. Enouf energy to a 100-watt bulb (Hughes).
Glossery
Definitions- ASPO, Association for the Study of Peak Oil
- Barrel, 42 gallons or 158.984 liters.
- BOE - Barrel Of Oil Equivalent There are 42 gallons (apx 159 liters) in one barrel of oil, which contains about 5.8 million British Thermal Units (MBtus) or 1,700 kilowatt hours (kWh).
- BTU, British thermal unit, the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree F. 1 BTU = 1,055.05585 joules
- BCM, Billion cubic meters
- EOR, Enhanced Oil Recovery. Techniques that increase the amount of crude that is extracted from an oil field.
- EPR, Energy content of fuel/energy needed to obtain fuel.
- EROI, Quantity of energy Supplied / Quantity of Energy Used in Supply Process.
- EROEI, Energy returned on energy invested. Usable Acquited Energy / Energy Expended.
- HMA, Hot mix asphalt.
- Hubbert's peak, where oil production follows a bell-shaped curve.
- IEA, International Energy Agency
- LNG, Liquid Natural Gass
- MRC, Maximum reservoir contact. Improves recovery and sweep.
- Vatural Gas, CH4 or methane.
- Net Energy = Gross Energy * (EROI-1/EROI).
- NNR, Nonrenewable natural resource.
- SRP, Sucker rod pump.
Chemical Change. A Change in the composition and structure of a substance. If there is a change, there will also be a change in energy. If the energy released in the formation of a new structure is more then the chemical energy in the origional substance, energy will be given off (light/heat) in an exothermic reaction as in the burning of gasoline, otherwise it is an endothermic reaction.
Hydrocarbons - Organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon.
- Methane CH4 0.717 kg/m³, gas. CH4(g) + 2 O2(g) → CO2(g) + 2 H2O(l) + 891 kJ/mol.
- Ethane C2H6 1.282 kg/m³, gas. 2 C2H6 + 7 O2 → 4 CO2 + 6 H2O + 1561 kJ/mol.
- Propane C3H8 2.0098 kg/m³, gas. C3H8 + 5 O2 → 3 CO2 + 4 H2O + 2220kJ/mol.
- Butane C4H10 2.48 kg/m³, gas. 2 C4H10 + 13 O2 → 8 CO2 + 10 H2O + energy
- Pentane C5H12 0.626 g/cm³, liquid. C5H12 + 8 O2 → 5 CO2 + 6 H2O + energy
- Hexane C6H14 0.6548 g/mL, liquid. 2 C6H14 + 19 O2 → 14 H2O + 12 CO2 + energy
- Heptane C7H16 0.684 g/ml, liquid. C7H16 + 11 O2 → 7 CO2 + 8 H2O + energy
- Octane C8H18 0.703 g/mL, liquid. 2 C8H18 + 25 O2 → 16 CO2 + 18 H2O + energy
- Nonane C9H20 0.718 g/ml, liquid. C9H20 + 14 O2 → 9 CO2 + 10 H2O + energy
- Decane C10H22 0.73 g/ml, liquid. 2 C10H22 + 31O2 → 20 CO2 + 22 H2O + energy
Crude Oil Fractions- Gasses, 1 -4 (carbon atoms)
- Light Naphtha 5 - 7
- Heavy Naphtha 6 - 10
- Kerosene 10 - 15
- Light Gas Oil 13 - 18
- Heavy Gas Oil 16 - 40
- Residum > 40
Naphtha
A mixture of hydrocarbon molecules generally having between 5 and 12 carbon atoms. Light naphtha is the fraction boiling between 30°C and 90°C with molecules having 5–6 carbon atoms. Heavy naphtha boils between 90°C and 200°C with molecules having 6–12 carbon atoms.
Kerosene keros (κηρός) wax.
Clear liquid with a density of 0.78–0.81 g/cm3. Obtained from the fractional distillation of petroleum between 150 °C and 275 °C, producing carbon chains that can contain between 6 and 16 carbon atoms.
Mesuring Oil. Petroleum has a specific gravity of 0.88 where 1 liter weighs 0.88 kilograms. "When the barrel is processed, you may get something like 15 gallons of gasoline, 9 gal. of fuel oil (See Gasoil / D2), 10 gal. of jet fuel (Kerosene) and 4 gal of other "heavy" products such as lubricants, grease, asphalt / bitumene and plastics and 4 gallons of lighter condensates/naphtha" -
Answers.com"- 1 barrel of oil = 42 US gallons (159 liters or 35 imperial gallons).
- One barrel = 159 litres, 139.908821536 kilograms.
- One metric ton (1000 kilograms) is about 7 barrels.
- kbpd - thousand barrels per day.
- mbpd - million barrels per day.
- R/P - Reserve-to-production.
Gas, 1 BCM- 35.3 BCF
- 0.73 million tons LNG
- 36.0 trillion BTU
- 6.29 million BOE
Conventional Oil- Liquid oil below ground that can be obtained via conventional drilling technology
Unconventional oil
This kind of oil production is less efficient and has greater environmental impacts than that of conventional oil production.
- Extra heavy oil. Its viscosity ranges from molasses to a solid at room temperature. Venezuela's Orinoco heavy oil belt contains 1.2 trillion barrels (1.9×1011 m3).
- Oil sands. Mixtures of sand, clay and water that contain bitumen or tar. Total natural bitumen reserves are estimated at 249.67 billion barrels (39.694×10^9 m3) globally, of which 176.8 billion barrels (28.11×10^9 m3), or 70.8%, are in Canada (wiki).
- Oil shales. Organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing significant amounts of kerogen. Global deposits are said to be from 2.8 to 3.3 trillion barrels (450×10^9 to 520×10^9 m3).
- Coal-based liquid supplies.
- Biomass-based liquid supplies.
- liquids arising from chemical processing of natural gas.
Crude vs Condensate
They're both crude. If the hydrocarbons in the reservoir were in the liquid phase, we use the label oil. If the reservoir hydrocarbons are vapor, we use the label condensate which is natural gas liquids(C1-C4) like methane, ethane, propane, and butane as well as a C5.
Energy Content, 1 joule = 9.48×10−4 BTU.
gas
1 cubic foot of natural gas = 983 BTU.
oil
1 BOE = 5.45 x 106 BTU.
1 exajoule = 174 million BOE.
coal
1 lb coal (anthracite) = 12,700 BTU
1 lb coal (bituminous) = 11,500 BTU
1 lb coal (subituminous) = 8,800 BTU
1 metric ton of coal = 22.72 * 106 BTU.
Cubic Mille of Oil, CMO
1 CMO = 2.62×10^10 BOE, one trillion U.S gallons, 1.6×10^20 J(160 exajoules),
4.454×10^13 kilowatt-hours, 1.52×10^17 BTU.
Crude Oil Benchmarks or Oil Markers- Brent, Used to price two thirds of the world's internationally traded crude oil supplies.
- WTI, West Texas Intermediate, US.
- Opec basket, an average of 15 different crudes. Saharan Blend from Algeria, Girassol from Angola, Oriente from Ecuador, etc.
Pump Jack (nodding donkey, sucker rod pump[SRP]). Converts rotary motion to a vertical reciprocating motion. Used to lift an emulsion of crude and water out of the well if there is not enough bottom hole pressure for the liquid to flow all the way to the surface. Powered by a prime mover. Lifts 5 to 40 litres with each stroke.
- Prime Mover, an electric motor or combustion engine.
- Samson Post, A type of A frame Post.
- Crank
- Counter Weight,
- Pitman Arm, converts angular motion into linear motion.
- Walking Beam, a pivoted overhead beam.
- Horse Head
- Bridle, a cable that connects the horse head to the polished rod.
Viscosity - thickness or internal friction
- Bingham plastic
- Shear thinning
- Newtonian
- Shear thickening
Bibliography
Kenneth S. Deffeyes,
Beyond Oil, Hillana Wang
T.K. Derry and Trevor I. Williams,
A Short History of Technology, Dover Publications, Inc
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. Now Alaska it should be cheapest as thats where its piped from
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