Blog 6: Crude Oil Production

Crude oil, a dark oil consisting mainly of hydrocarbons, in our main source for in mechanical energy. All types of fossil fuels are converted to oil and gas to keep our cars running. Oil to keep the engine slick and from corroding and the gas to give off energy from the combustion in the tank. With this said, we can say that fossil fuels are a very important thing in our everyday lives as without it we couldn’t travel to and from work, nor could we operate heavy machinery. Since the early 90s, the production of crude oil has had a pretty consistent fall of production. In the later 200X, the number of millions of gallons produced per day has started to go back up. Recently in the month of November 2012, the production had reached an all-time high since twenty years ago in the year of 1992 when it was last over 7 million barrels per day. A dangerous thing about refining crude oil is where it is actually happening. Crude oil refineries are all over the world. With them being everywhere, it is taken note that there is a lot of imbalance in these refineries. Within recent years, two major oil refineries exploded in Mexico causing a mass explosion, killing nearby workers. These explosions are spontaneous, not letting the workers know nearly enough ahead of time of when the pipes will explode. Although dangerous to work there, the process of the oil refinement is actually very intriguing. The oil is separated into two groups. Saturated and non-saturated hydrocarbon groups. This is done because the two types react differently to different thermal conditions. Catalytic cracking warms the oil to separate the long carbon bonds at a high temperature of five-hundred degree Celsius. This is contained in an oxygen free container creating the different groups. With these rates increasing rapidly at an increase, it is not known when these numbers will go back down, if they ever do.

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=10171&src=email