Chapter 2 - Oil Overview Flashcards
What does Petroleum mostly consist of?
Petroleum consists mostly of hydrocarbon molecules, themselves made up of various combinations of hydrogen and carbon atoms.
What is the simplest hydrocarbon molecule?
The simplest hydrocarbon molecule—one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms (CH4 )—is called methane and is the primary component of natural gas.
Crude old is a mixture of a very large number of hydrocarbons with arcane names such as? What is a distinguishing characteristic?
Alkanes (or paraffins) Cycloalkanes (or naphthenes) Aromatic hydrocarbons Asphaltenes The number of carbon atoms they contain
The type, variety, and structure of the hydrocarbon molecules in crude oil determine its physical and chemical properties, such as?
Color, thickness (viscosity),and boiling point.
The petroleum industry uses three major parameters to classify crude oil, what are they?
• Geographic location in which it is produced (which affects the cost of transporting the crude to a refinery). • API gravity (an oil industry measure of density;API is the American Petroleum Institute). Light crude oil has relatively low density; heavy crude has high density. Oil with an API gravity (expressed as oAPI) below 10.0 is classified as extraheavy. • Sulfur content. Crude is generally called sweet if it contains relatively little sulfur or sour if it contains substantial amounts.
Why is light crude oil more desirable than heavy oil?
Light crude oil is more desirable than heavy oil because it produces a higher yield of gasoline, a highly valued petroleum product for transportation use.
Why does sweet oil command a higher price than sour oil?
Sweet oil commands a higher price than sour oil because it has fewer environmental problems and requires less refining to meet sulfur-content standards imposed by buyers.
Define Assay Analysis.
Each crude oil has unique molecular characteristics that are evaluated by a process called assay analysis, carried out in a laboratory.
Define benchmark crude.
Oil from an area in which its molecular characteristics have been determined is used as a pricing reference, or benchmark, in global oil markets.
Define West Texas Intermediate
West Texas Intermediate (WTI), a very high quality sweet, light oil delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma, for North American oil. Cushing is the delivery point for WTI traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the most widely traded oil futures contracts in the world.
Define Brent Blend.
Brent Blend, made up of 15 oils from fields in the Brent and Ninian systems in the East Shetland Basin of the North Sea. Oil production from Europe and Africa, as well as Middle Eastern oil flowing to the West, tends to be priced using this benchmark.
Define Dubai-Oman.
Dubai-Oman, used as benchmark for Middle East sour crude flowing to the Asia-Pacific region.
Define OPEC Reference Basket.
OPEC Reference Basket, a weighted average of oils and blends from the 12 nations that make up the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Define Midway-Sunset Heavy.
Midway-Sunset Heavy, by which heavy oil in California is priced. Midway-Sunset is a large oil field in Kern County, California.
Define Unconventional Crude Oil.
Several types of oil resources are called unconventional, to distinguish them from oil that can be extracted using traditional oil field methods. These include tar sands (also called oil sands) and shale oil.
Define Shale Oil.
Another unconventional resource, shale oil is found in shale source rock that has not been exposed to heat or pressure long enough to convert trapped hydrocarbons into crude oil.
Define marls.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), oil shales are not technically shales and do not really contain oil. Rather, they are usually relatively hard rocks called marls—composed primarily of clay and calcium carbonate— containing the waxy substance called kerogen.
Why is Shale useful.
The trapped kerogen can be converted into crude oil using heat and pressure to simulate natural processes.
Where is the largest Shale formation?
Oil shales are found in many countries, but the United States has the world’s largest deposits. These are located chiefly in the Green River formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.2 DOE has estimated that as much as 800 billion barrels of oil are recoverable from that formation.
Combined, how much heavy oil does Canada and Venezuela contain?
Combined, Canada and Venezuela contain an estimated 3.6 trillion barrels (570 billion cubic meters) of bitumen and extraheavy oil.
Define resources.
Resources are hydrocarbons that may or may not be produced in the future. An initial estimate of the magnitude of the resource in a yet-to-be- drilled prospect may be made.
Define appraisal.
However, appraisal (by drilling delineation wells or acquiring more seismic data, as described in chap. 4) is needed to confirm the size of a field and pave the way for development and production.
Define Oil in Place.
The total estimated amount of oil in a reservoir, including both producible and nonproducible oil, is called oil in place (OIP)
Define recovery factor.
The ratio of producible oil reserves to total OIP for a given field is often referred to as the recovery factor.
