 Photo courtesy Phillips Petroleum Co. Offshore oil rig. See more oil drilling pictures. |
In 2005 alone, the United States produced an estimated 9 million barrels of crude oil per day and imported 13.21 million barrels per day from other countries. This oil gets refined into gasoline, kerosene, heating oil and other products. To keep up with our consumption, oil companies must constantly look for new sources of petroleum, as well as improve the production of existing wells.
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How does a company go about finding oil and pumping it from the ground? You may have seen images of black crude oil gushing out of the ground, or seen an oil well in movies and television shows like "Giant," "Oklahoma Crude," "Armageddon" and "Beverly Hillbillies." But modern oil production is quite different from the way it's portrayed in the movies.
In this article, we will examine how modern oil exploration and drilling works. We will discuss how oil is formed, found and extracted from the ground.
Oil is a fossil fuel that can be found in many countries around the world. In this section, we will discuss how oil is formed and how geologists find it.
