Is the risk worth the price?

We went over a general description of what refineries do and how they separate the different types of fuels from the crude in the last blog. Now what if I was to want to get a job there and possibly start a career in the oil industry what dangers would I be facing? Working in refineries has a wealth of unsung problems that are overlooked for nothing more than the necessity of the oil in the economy. The refinery workers also referred to as rough necks or roustabouts have a tough job they work for not nearly enough pay for the constant threat of fires, explosions, lead poisoning, unsafe scaffolding, heat exposure, falling and much more. Case in point just last February the Sun Ray refinery in Texas one of six of the refiner corporation Valero the largest on North American soil. This refinery produces about 170,000 barrels a day caught fire and the smoke plumes could be seen up to 60 miles away from the burning oil and gases. Luckily there were no deaths but about 17 were critically wounded before the blaze was controlled.

Next disaster that is on rough necks minds is the chance for sudden explosions where you don’t see them coming but chances are you won’t see anything after it happens either. Case I am referring to is an explosion that took place in Texas City that killed 15 workers and injured over 70 others. This was a rather fast extinguished fire but the pure force of the blast shook windows and walls and could be felt for miles by the local inhabitants. Reason I bring this up is this incident could be easily avoided had the refinery owned by BP taken steps to correct problems already known and documented before the incident had taken place. I believe things like this testament of gross negligence should be addressed and the safety of the workers should not take the backseat just so the owners can make a profit and see how many barrels they can produce in a day.

You have the oil from the ground now what?

Alright now that we drilled up some oil from the ground below it goes into our cars and trucks right? Not quite yet now that we have gone over the different ways the oil enterprise retrieves its oil via; land based rotary pumps /offshore rigs. What happens to the oil then? What happens to the oil then is it will be transported by way of pipelines/barrels to the closest refinery in the region. Once the crude (term for unrefined oil) arrives the oil will be treated and turned into a usable source of fuel. When referring to oil refining not much is wasted of the precious commodity, we as the consumers use just about every part of the breakdown of oil from tar to jet fuel to propane.

The process of refining the oil is a complex method starting with distillation which generally means the breakdown of components by use of a furnace. From there it is sent to a number of steel towers depending on the refinery, these towers put simply are composed of different levels of temperature where certain components as they cool will be deposited on these levels making up the different types of fuel as described by the diagram below. There are many different types of variants that we use in every day needs such as the lubricants, waxes, fuel oil to heat our homes. Then we have the most commonly referred types being that of vehicle gases such as diesel, kerosene, gasoline, and finally the gas we use to have that motivating BBQ which is propane.

Enough about Arabs what about the US oil

Oil trafficking has many parts to its structure what we found out last entry was some of the many Arabic contributors to the petrol race. Next lets look at the American side of things we have floating oil production platforms, land based rigs and John Wayne if things get out of hand.
Looking to the Gulf of Mexico we see some spectacular sights of accomplishment when we see the giant floating oil rigs drilling up to 250,000 barrels of oil a day. These rigs being that they are closer to home provide the US the ability to harvest the oil from the gulf floor off the Louisiana coast. These floating platforms have been around since 1947 just getting bigger and more efficient in what they do best. There only enemy is the seas that being proven in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina were up to 20 of the mammoth platforms were lost to the storm.
Unfortunately there are issues at play that have persuaded the rigs to move to easier drill points off Africa, and off the Arabian coast as well as china. There rationale being the easy deposits is used up and not enough work can be done worth the effort and money I discovered this on the Science of Rigs. That’s a lot about the ocean drillers what about the land based corporations? The land based rotary rigs have numbers up to 1300 since 2001. These rigs provide jobs and income for new developing contractors and are common wherever reservoirs of oil can be found from Alaska to Texas.

References cited
Kris Axtman (2005 July 26). Oil Rig Science, The Christian Science Monitor
retrieved April 3, 2007 from http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0726/p03s01-usgn.html

Where does the oil start

We have all been to the gas pumps getting frustrated with the daily price changes and the effects of the oil business on the United States lately, what I am going to write about is the origins from the ground to the pumps and as much as I can find in between. The oil has to start somewhere for this blog it’s going to start in the ground.
To start we have origins of the black gold, it has been documented that the top three oil producing countries are Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. This information was found from the OPEC website in the FAQ section within the library section if interested. Here is a fun fact some of these countries produce up to 260,000 barrels of crude a year and they are a very influencing voice in pricing in case you didn’t know.
Oil unfortunately did not just show up from the ground beneath the local shell station it came from the decomposition of ancient plants animals and sediments taking decades to move into a position to be harvested as a usable source of energy. The process of obtaining this precious commodity that the world over shares is simple at best. To drill to a depth within the earth into a satisfactory reservoir found by well paid geologists whose sole job is studying an area for the best deposit. Now lately you may have heard a lot about Oil Peaking on the news.
Oil Peaking is portrayed as the running out of oil this is not so. The peaking is referring to the Hubbard scale featured below from after the oil crash site. Peaking is not the running out of oil merely the lack of oil to sustain our current way of life. The models for this event state there is a chance anytime from present to the year 2040 so start thinking of finding non oil related ways of living.

My First Blog

This is my first blog to be posted anyone have any suggestions as to what the best subjects would be feel free to shoot me a comment. To give a brief overview on myself I am in the service, from PA. As far as goals are concerned I want to stay motivated and keep doing the things that will benefit that goal. As for my theme I have decided to have my blogs around oil trafficking.