petroleum production

petroleum production, recovery of crude oil and, often, associated natural gas from Earth.

Petroleum is a naturally occurring hydrocarbon material that is believed to have formed from animal and vegetable debris in deep sedimentary beds. The petroleum, being less dense than the surrounding water, was expelled from the source beds and migrated upward through porous rock such as sandstone and some limestone until it was finally blocked by nonporous rock such as shale or dense limestone. In this way, petroleum deposits came to be trapped by geologic features caused by the folding, faulting, and erosion of Earth’s crust.

Petroleum may exist in gaseous, liquid, or near-solid phases either alone or in combination. The liquid phase is commonly called crude oil, while the more-solid phase may be called bitumen, tar, pitch, or asphalt. When these phases occur together, gas usually overlies the liquid, and the liquid overlies the more-solid phase. Occasionally, petroleum deposits elevated during the formation of mountain ranges have been exposed by erosion to form tar deposits. Some of these deposits have been known and exploited throughout recorded history. Other near-surface deposits of liquid petroleum seep slowly to the surface through natural fissures in the overlying rock. Accumulations from these seeps, called rock oil, were used commercially in the 19th century to make lamp oil by simple distillation. The vast majority of petroleum deposits, however, lie trapped in the pores of natural rock at depths from 150 to 7,600 metres (500 to 25,000 feet) below the surface of the ground. As a general rule, the deeper deposits have higher internal pressures and contain greater quantities of gaseous hydrocarbons.

Discover how ordinary objects work, and expand your understanding of the familiar.

SIGN UP

" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">

Thank you for signing up!"

Back to homepage

By clicking "Sign Up", you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

1 of 2

2 of 2

When it was discovered in the 19th century that rock oil would yield a distilled product (kerosene) suitable for lanterns, new sources of rock oil were eagerly sought. It is now generally agreed that the first well drilled specifically to find oil was that of Edwin Laurentine Drake in Titusville, Pennsylvania, U.S., in 1859. The success of this well, drilled close to an oil seep, prompted further drilling in the same vicinity and soon led to similar exploration elsewhere. By the end of the century, the growing demand for petroleum products resulted in the drilling of oil wells in other states and countries. In 1900, crude oil production worldwide was nearly 150 million barrels. Half of this total was produced in Russia, and most (80 percent) of the rest was produced in the United States (see also drilling machinery).

The advent and growth of automobile usage in the second decade of the 20th century created a great demand for petroleum products. Annual production surpassed one billion barrels in 1925 and two billion barrels in 1940. By the last decade of the 20th century, there were almost one million wells in more than 100 countries producing more than 20 billion barrels per year. By the end of the second decade of the 21st century, petroleum production had risen to nearly 34 billion barrels per year, of which an increasing share was supported by ultradeepwater drilling and unconventional crude production (in which petroleum is extracted from shales, tar sands, or bitumen or is recovered by other methods that differ from conventional drilling). Petroleum is produced on every continent except Antarctica, which is protected from petroleum exploration by an environmental protocol to the Antarctic Treaty until 2048.

Prospecting and exploration

Drake’s original well was drilled close to a known surface seepage of crude oil. For years such seepages were the only reliable indicators of the presence of underground oil and gas. However, as demand grew, new methods were devised for evaluating the potential of underground rock formations. Today, exploring for oil requires integration of information collected from seismic surveys, geologic framing, geochemistry, petrophysics, geographic information systems (GIS) data gathering, geostatistics, drilling, reservoir engineering, and other surface and subsurface investigative techniques. Geophysical exploration including seismic analysis is the primary method of exploring for petroleum. Gravity and magnetic field methods are also historically reliable evaluation methods carrying over into more complex and challenging exploration environments, such as sub-salt structures and deep water. Beginning with GIS, gravity, magnetic, and seismic surveys allow geoscientists to efficiently focus the search for target assets to explore, thus lowering the risks associated with exploration drilling.

There are three major types of exploration methods: (1) surface methods, such as geologic feature mapping, enabled by GIS, (2) area surveys of gravity and magnetic fields, and (3) seismographic methods. These methods indicate the presence or absence of subsurface features that are favourable for petroleum accumulations. There is still no way to predict the presence of productive underground oil deposits with 100 percent accuracy.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE