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An essay on the history of crude oil production
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America has been dependant on oil since the 1800’s and the invention of modern machinery. From skin care products to the gasoline in our cars and engines, petroleum is the basis of almost everything we use for everyday life. Without oil the nation could not meet the energy demands we need to survive. Continued exploration has been the topic of heated debate among supporters and opponents, especially when it comes to offshore drilling. My goal here is to show the differing view points of drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and present a better understanding from a national perspective. Drilling for our own offshore oil reserves can save the United States billions of dollars.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
For Decades offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has provided much of the natural petroleum recourses to meet the great energy demand of our nation. From 1978 to 1982, the Unites states owned 38% of the world’s offshore oil wells, with the majority located in the Gulf of Mexico. From mid 1954 through 1984, an average of 755 wells were drilled per year. While oil production from the shallow waters is in decline, deepwater productivity is steadily increasing. All together, the resources produced from Gulf drilling are more than 25 % of our oil production and 20 % of our natural gas production. According to the most optimistic geo-surveyors, the Gulf could hold over 40 billion barrels of undiscovered petroleum which could support our national energy needs for many years. Discoveries in these deeper rock formations, known as the Lower Tertiary, are said to possibly yield as much as 15 billion barrels of reserves. Chevron and BP, two of the world’s largest petroleum engineering and exploration companies, are constantly devising newer...
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...ing reserves we already own could greatly increase our prosperity for decades to come.
Works Cited
Associated Press. “Pelosi: Democrats Open to Limited Offshore Oil Drilling.” Fox News. Fox News Network. Aug. 16, 2008. Web. 21 Feb. 2011.
Daily, Mathew, Brendan Farrington. “Obama Administration: No Offshore Drilling in Eastern Gulf of Mexico or East Coast for Seven Years Because of BP Oil Spill. Huffington post. Huffpost Green. Dec. 1, 2010. Web. 21 Feb. 2011.
Mouawad, Jad. “Drilling Deep in the Gulf of Mexico.” New York Times. New York Times. Nov. 8 2006. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.
Restuccia, Andrew. “Top House Republican to Offer Drilling Bill.” The Hill. Capital Hill Publishing Inc. Mar. 16, 2011. Web. 22 Feb. 2011.
Significance: Right now, The United States of America languishes in an economic decline. Jobs are being lost. Drilling in the ANWR will create hundreds of thousands of jobs. Also, 80% of Alaska’s state revenues are oil. With the North Slope oil fields in decline, Alaskans could lose jobs. Drilling in the ANWR will create jobs for Alaskans. As Jennie Wodkowski, who has lived in Alaska for 34 years said, “Oil’s important. We don’t have anything else going on here.”
Drilling for oil in Alaska will cause the environment and animals to suffer. Oil drilling in Alaska started in 1980 when America found itself in an oil crisis. So a solution for this crisis was to start drilling for oil in other locations. The largest oil field in North America was in Prudhoe Bay on the north coast of Alaska. Prudhoe Bay would soon account for 20% of all domestic U.S. oil production. Despite the oil crisis in 1980, Congress formed a wildlife reserve just east of Prudhoe Bay. it was called The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR). Document A.
Scherer, Ron. "US to Tap Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Drive Gas Prices down." The Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor, 23 June 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2012.
On January 10th 1901 the discovery of oil at Spindletop would lead to the greatest economy boom the world has ever encountered. The amount of oil that would be discovered across Texas would be more than enough to power America through the next several decades. The effects of having oil would completely change Texas culture, lifestyle, and business tremendously. In the book of Oil In Texas, will prove that America would change completely from agriculture nation to an industrial nation after the discovery of oil in Texas.
The BP oil spill began with the explosion of the mobile offshore drilling unit known as the Deepwater Horizon, then operating in the Macondo Prospect Oil Field some 60 kilometers off the coast of the U.S. state of Louisiana, on April 29, 2010. The leak was capped on July 15, 2010, with a repair to the underwater wellhead ruptured by the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Thus, the BP oil spill lasted for about three months. During this time, roughly 5 million barrels of crude oil leaked from the wellhead into the Gulf of Mexico. The flow rate was not uniform, beginning...
April 20, 2010, a tragic disaster struck the Gulf Coast. British Petroleum deepwater Horizon oil rig cracked from three places and raw oil leaking into the sea. .it was considered that over 60,000 barrels of oil a day are mixing with Gulf water and Oil spread over 70 miles to 130 miles into the sea and can be seen from space.
There are three exploratory oil rigs that have been drilling under contract for several years along the Angola coast. Each oil rig owned by a United States drilling company. The case study focuses on a small oil rig called the “Explorer IV” housing 180 staff, 30 of these being American expatriate workers or “Expat”, and the top administrator in authority regarding life on the rig is an Expat himself. The purpose of the oil rig’s purpose is for drilling oil and to house all of the staff drilling and operating the rig. The rig is approximately 200 feet by 100 feet so cramped and tight living spaces is to be expected. However, there is a difference in living quarters, quality of food, medical care, and means of transportation between the Angolan’s and the Expats.
The United States has had several scares throughout its history in terms of oil, most turn out to be over exaggerations of a small event. However, these scares highlight a massive issue with the U.S. and that issue is the U.S.’s dependence on foreign oil. Why does it matter that our oil should come from over seas? In a healthy economy this probably wouldn’t be as relevant, but the U.S.’s economy is not exactly healthy at the moment. There are 4 things that I would like to address: what the problem is, how it affects us, what some solutions are, and what solutions I feel are best.
Throughout the past three decades, energy has been a perennial issue in United States politics, economics, and media. The main concern surrounding this topic is the idea of energy independence and how the United States should proceed into the future. Energy independence relates to the goal of reducing United States dependence on importing foreign oil and other foreign energy sources. This desire aims to maintain energy dependence domestically so the United States can avoid reliance on any unstable countries and be detached from global energy supply distribution. It is currently being speculated that the United States might not be too far off from this goal. America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year since 2007. In 2010, the U.S. imported less than 50 percent of the oil the country consumed -- the first time that’s happened in 13 years -- and the trend continued in 2011 (Zhang.) Experts credit new technology as the reason the United States is within several years of again becoming the biggest oil producer in the world, and perhaps two decades away from full energy independence. Hydraulic fracturing, fracking, is the “lead” technology in this technological revolution. Fracking is an economically more feasible way of drilling for oil or gas in harder to reach geological formation. Within the past decade or so, combining hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling has opened up shale deposits across the country. It has brought large-scale natural gas drilling to new regions that may not have had accessible deposits in the past. These areas have greatly benefited from the addition of this industry to their local economies. Certain are...
The United States relies on imports for about forty percent of its crude oil, which is the lowest rate of dependency since 1991 according to the U.S Energy Information Administration. Today our country is trying to keep on track in becoming less and less dependent. When it comes to the topic of the future ways the United States will get its fuel, most of us readily agree that the United States should become more independent by using natural gas that is already here on our land. Where this argument usually ends, however, is on the question of the consequences drilling for natural gas brings. Whereas some are convinced drilling is safe, others maintain that it is actually in fact dangerous. Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking", the terms for drilling for natural gas, is dangerous to our public health and to the environment because of the water contamination it causes. Therefore, it is not something that should become a project for alternative fuel used by the United States.
Due to the potential dangers of dead zones to the environment and economy in the Gulf of Mexico, the American government needs to make dramatic and controversial efforts to stop the growth of this dead zone.
" Oil is the life blood of our modern industrial society. It fuels the machines and lubricates the wheels of the world’s production. But when that vital resource is out of control, it can destroy marine life and devastate the environment and economy of an entire region…. The plain facts are that the technology of oil-- its extraction, its transport, its refinery and use-- has outpaced laws to control that technology and prevent oil from polluting the environment…" (Max, 1969). Oil in its many forms has become one of the necessities of modern industrial life. Under control, and serving its intended purpose, oil is efficient, versatile, and productive. On the other hand, when oil becomes out of control, it can be one of the most devastating substances in the environment. When spilled in water, it spreads for miles around leaving a black memory behind (Stanley, 1969).
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, located in the Gulf of Mexico exploded killing 11 workers and injuring 17. The oil rig sank a day-and-a-half later. The spill was referred to as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP oil spill, Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and BP oil disaster. It was first said that little oil had actually leaked into the ocean but a little over a month later the estimate was 12,000-19,000 barrels of crude oil being leaked per day. Many attempts were made to stop the leak but all failed until they capped the leak on July 15, 2010, and on September 19 the federal government declared the well “effectively dead.” In the three months that it took to finally put a stop the leak, 4.9 million barrels of oil were released into the ocean. The spill caused considerable damage to marine and wildlife habitats and the Gulf’s fishing and tourism industries. The White House energy advisor, Carol Browner, goes as far to say that the Deepwater oil spill is the “worst environmental disaster the US has faced.”
finding new ways to drill for oil and also refine it more efficiently to ensure that
As we have discussed, petroleum, natural gas, and its industries are a major factor in our economy. Oil and natural gas’s history, operations, environmental impacts, and present and future challenges demonstrate the importance of these non-renewable natural resources. The exploration of oil will continue to expand through the study of geoscience, engineering, and most importantly, technology. Midstream, containing the main operations of oil and gas, is improving each year in efficient processes for transporting, refining, and storing oil and gas. Despite the numerous challenges that are faced in the petroleum and gas industry, geologists continue to strive to make their operations safer for the environment, but are these efforts enough to save our planet for our future generations?