This episode summarizes the geology and geography of petroleum and typical exploration and extraction techniques.
Topics covered in this video:
0:00 - 3:51
- History of North America's first oil wells: Petrolia, ON and Titusville, PA
- "Oil boom" 1860 - 1900
- Movement to Middle East and South America
- Top 5 Countries:
- oil production to date (since ~1860)
- 2011 rate of oil production
- remaining oil reserves
3:52 - 6:55
- Geography of the Middle East
- bodies of water, countries
- contains 60% of the world's petroleum reserves
- map of oil field locations in the Middle East
- Ghawar
6:56 - 12:38
- Why is oil concentrated in the Middle East?
- Geological explanation
- How to make exploitable petroleum
- source rock
- permeability
- diagram of a vertical slice through Earth's crust
- anticlines, pinchout
12:39 - 17:49 (end)
- Exploration and production steps
- test wells and "primary production" phase -- free-flowing petroleum
- secondary recovery, injection wells and how they work
- tertiary recovery, heating oil by injecting steam to reduce viscosity
- Production history of an oil field
Created by Prof. Richard Sedlock at San Jose State University
