Introduction to Oil Exploration & Production

Prepared byHemant KumarDomain ConsultantE&U (Energy)

Please note

• This document is first in the series of three documents explaining the underlying processes in upstream (exploration & production) sector

• Next two documents are titled as Oil “exploration-prospecting.ppt” and Basics of Oil and Gas Exploration.ppt

• All three documents have been stored on KNet

Oil In day to day life

The food you eat grow withThe help of fertilizer made from oil and natural gas

The gasoline in our car is made form oil

The asphalt pavement onRoad is made from oil

The electricity in our house- oil and gas helped to make it

How oil is formed? • Oil was formed underground• From the remains of prehistoric plant & animals.

Introduction

Mt. Everest, the world’s highest mountain,Is a mass of rock about 6 miles high.

So rock 20 miles deep would reach over three times as far. That’s a lot of rock, and

that’s what you might be sitting on

Everywhere you go, you are sitting on top of rock. In some cases you can be on top

of about 20 miles of rock.Now how much is 20 miles?

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Most rock containing oil begins as tiny grains of sand, silt or clay, like

the soil in your yard.

Through the years, wind and water rolled these small grains around. Eventually they settle in

low spots, often under water.Sand, silt and clay grains sink in the water

covering up dead plants and animal life. Water is trapped between the grains as well

Soon the grains themselves Are covered by more dead

plant and animal life.The process is repeated over and

over as layers of mud, sand and water build up for thousands of feet.

Plants and animals live in the water as well. Most are too small to be seen

without a microscope. Many are diatoms which are tiny, one celled

plant

When things get piled up, Sometimes the things on the bottom get squashed by the

weight of the things on the top.

This is what happens to the layers of sand, mud and water and dead plant and animal life. As they are covered up on sea bottoms, the pressure on them become greater and greater.

As they are the buried deeper and deeper, they also get hotter. Finally after millions of years and the right amounts of heat and pressure,the mud and sand grains harden into rock. The rock looks like brown or gray cement.

As the dead plant and animal life decay, oil and gas are formed. Most oil and gas come from decayed microscopic plants and animals.

Exactly how oil and gas form isn’t known. Heat, pressure and bacteriaare all important.

All of this happened in shallow seas, which covered much of the state that is

now above water. Most oil and gas fields are found where these seas once were.

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Note the stripes in rock shown. They are nothing but the different Layers neatly piled up.

• Continued in the “Oil exploratin-prospecting.ppt” on Knet

http://www.spe.org/spe/jsp/basic

http://science.howstuffworks.com/oil-drilling4.htm

http://www.leeric.lsu.edu/bgbb/3/origin.html

http://www.mssu.edu/seg-vm/introduction_to_geophysical_prospecting.html

http://www.adventuresinenergy.org

Reference