Oil is one of our most important natural resources. The searches for new sources - and options for alternative sources - are outlined here.

Presents a history of drilling for oil in the Arctic region, provides arguments for and against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and discusses the challenges of the area.

Texas and wildcatters--they go together. And Pattillo Higgins was the granddaddy of them all. Without him Spindletop, Texas' first gusher, would never have been drilled, and the history of the modern oil industry might have been far different. Here for the first time is his dramatic, almost mystifying story, based on his personal papers and told by his grandnephew. It was Pattillo Higgins who showed the more famous Captain Anthony Lucas where to drill at Spindletop. He organized the Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company in 1892, and he located oil fields all over Texas and Louisiana--as many as 100 independent fields, some still unexplored. Although often doubted, he has never yet been proven wrong on one. In his career he gained and lost several fortunes, opened the first brick plant in southeast Texas, and operated a logging enterprise on the Neches River. He was once acquitted in a murder trial, experienced a religious conversion, and married his adopted daughter. But throughout his life the search for oil was his chief preoccupation--one he never abandoned. This is the story of a determined, dedicated individual who took large risks in order to find black gold. It firmly gives Pattillo Higgins his rightful place as one of the three or four great names in the Texas oil industry.

Handbook of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations is an authoritative source providing extensive up-to-date coverage of the technology used in the exploration, drilling, production, and operations in an offshore setting. Offshore oil and gas activity is growing at an expansive rate and this must-have training guide covers the full spectrum including geology, types of platforms, exploration methods, production and enhanced recovery methods, pipelines, and envinronmental managment and impact, specifically worldwide advances in study, control, and prevention of the industry's impact on the marine environment and its living resources. In addition, this book provides a go-to glossary for quick reference. Handbook of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations empowers oil and gas engineers and managers to understand and capture on one of the fastest growing markets in the energy sector today. - Quickly become familiar with the oil and gas offshore industry, including deepwater operations - Understand the full spectrum of the business, including environmental impacts and future challenges - Gain knowledge and exposure on critical standards and real-world case studies

After World War II, the discovery and production of onshore oil in the United States faced decline. As a result, offshore prospects in the Gulf of Mexico took on new strategic value. Shell Oil Company pioneered many of the early moves offshore and continues to lead the way into “deepwater.” Tyler Priest’s study is the first time the modern history of Shell Oil has been told in any detail. Drawing on interviews with Shell retirees and many other sources, Priest relates how the imagination, talent, and hard work of personnel at all levels shaped the evolution of the company. The narrative also covers important aspects of Shell Oil’s corporate evolution, but the company’s pioneering steps into the deepwater fields of the Gulf of Mexico are its signature achievement. Priest’s study demonstrates that engineers did not suddenly create methods for finding and producing oil and gas from astounding water depths. Rather, they built on a half-century of accumulated knowledge and improvements to technical systems. Shell Oil’s story is unique, but it also illuminates the modern history of the petroleum industry. As Priest demonstrates, this company’s experiences offer a starting point for examining the understudied topics of strategic decision-making, scientific research, management of technology, and corporate organization and culture within modern oil companies, as well as how these activities applied to offshore development. “. . . tells a dramatic story of imaginative businessmen and engineers who propelled Shell forward in the search for ways to locate and recover oil from the depths of the sea.”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly “This book’s narrative is sustained throughout by easily understood explanations of the technical details of drilling and production.”—Journal of Southern History

This book explains in detail how to use oil and gas show information to find hydrocarbons. It covers the basics of exploration methodologies, drilling and mud systems, cuttings and mud gas show evaluation, fundamental log analysis, the pitfalls of log-calculated water saturations, and a complete overview of the use of pressures to understand traps and migration, hydrodynamics, and seal and reservoir quantification using capillary pressure. Also included are techniques for quickly generating pseudo-capillary pressure curves from simple porosity/permeability data, with examples of how to build spreadsheets in Excel, and a complete treatment of fluid inclusion analysis and fluid inclusion stratigraphy to map migration pathways. In addition, petroleum systems modeling and fundamental source rock geochemistry are discussed in depth, particularly in the context of unconventional source rock evaluation and screening tools for entering new plays. The book is heavily illustrated with numerous examples and case histories from the author’s 37 years of exploration experience. The topics covered in this book will give any young geoscientist a quick start on a successful career and serve as a refresher for the more experienced explorer.

Oil has made fortunes, caused wars, and shaped nations. Accordingly, no one questions the idea that the quest for oil is a quest for power. The question we should ask, Finding Oil suggests, is what kind of power prospectors have wanted. This book revises oil?s early history by exploring the incredibly varied stories of the men who pitted themselves against nature to unleash the power of oil. Brian Frehner shows how, despite the towering presence of a figure like John D. Rockefeller as a quintessential ?oil man,? prospectors were a diverse lot who saw themselves, their interests, and their relationships with nature in profoundly different ways. He traces their various pursuits of power from 1859 to 1920 as a struggle for cultural, intellectual, and professional authority, over both nature and their peers. Here we see how some saw power as the work they did exploring and drilling into landscapes, while others saw it in the intellectual work of explaining how and where oil accumulated. Charting the intersection of human and natural history, their story traces the ever-evolving relationship between science and industry and reveals the unsuspected role geology played in shaping our understanding of the history of oil.