Origin and Discovery of Oil and

Gas
Abstract: Petroleum is a necessity in todays world. It powers our modes of transportations and

our homes as well. There are many misconceptions about oil and gas. These misconceptions

range from misconceptions about the origins of petroleum products to misconceptions about the

ways we are able to predict the existence of oil and gas. Some of these misconceptions are

addressed in this paper such as the origins of oil and gas, to the different types of predrilling

seismic exploratory tests that can be ran to help ensure that a well can and will produce oil and

gas. This topic was interesting to me due to the fact that it is the base of all petroleum

engineering. Without the origin of oil and gas and the methods we use to predict if there is oil

and gas within a reservoir petroleum engineering would not be a career choice for me or any

other engineer if oil and gas had not formed, or been discovered.
 Origin and Discovery of Oil and Gas

Oil and gas are used for many things in todays society, from powering our cars

to powering our homes. One of the many questions that people tend to ask is Where

do oil and gas come from? The creation of the oil and gas that we use today is a

complex process that began millions of years ago. Understanding where and why gas

and oil are created is crucial to the process of discovering and producing oil. Many

people picture oil and gas underground in lake like formations, this is an incorrect

way of visualizing it. While there are what is known as oil and gas reservoirs they are

not open in a lake like way, but rather cased in a portion of a rock, trapped until

impermeable layers are broken. The characteristics of rocks play an enormous role in

the production of oil and gas. How porous and permeable a rock is determines the

amount of oil and gas it might contain and if it is possible for it to contain oil and gas

at all. As a young engineering student who is very interested in petroleum engineering

the origins of oil and gas are very important to me. The methods that we use to

determine if oil and gas are currently present in a formation also extremely important

to me as a potential petroleum engineer. For these two reasons, I chose this topic of

discussion.

Most oil and gas is found in rocks, these rocks must be permeable and porous in

order for the oil and natural gas to be in them. Oil and gas are known as

hydrocarbons, they are called hydrocarbons because they are made up of hydrogen

and carbon. By mixing hydrocarbons an oily, thick and flammable liquid is formed.
The formed liquid is known as crude oil, crude oil is often referred to as petroleum.

The word petroleum comes from the mixture of the Greek word for rock, petra, and

the Latin word for oil, oleum. (American Association of Petroleum Geologists, 2017)

The combination of these two words forms the word petroleum which means rock oil.

Just by the origin of the word petroleum we learn one thing about it, it is in many

places, just like rocks! Petroleum is not isolated to only one country or even one

continent. Petroleum is worldwide and is found in vast regions, from the deserts of the

Middle East to the oceans of the Gulf Coast hydrocarbons are found in the earth.

Why do oil and gas accumulate? is a commonly asked question. One of the

answers, known as the organic theory states that oil and gas come from the remains of

animals from millions of years ago. Most of the oil and gas that has been created is

actually from microscopic organisms that sunk to the bottom of the sea before the

continents has shifted. Geologist say that even though dinosaurs and large trees where

alive at that time they would not have been covered up quickly enough by sand and

kerogen for the decomposition process to have not occurred. It is believed that the

main source of oil and gas is indeed from the microscopic organisms that lived in

prehistoric oceans and rivers. Plants and organisms that died in rivers were carried to

the sea where they sunk to the sea floor along with microscopic organisms that died in

the ocean and sunk to the floor. The remains of these plants and organisms mix with

sand, mud, and silt to form an organic, rich mixture known as kerogen. The kerogen

mixture was cut off from any oxygen by layers of sand that hardened to form rock.

Without oxygen the animals and plant remains could not decompose like they would
on land with abundant amounts of oxygen. Over time these rock layers kept building

becoming more and more dense and applying more and more pressure to the kerogen

mixture. As the layer began to build in size the amount of pressure increased, causing

the temperature to increase as well. At lower temperatures, which means less

pressure, only oil was formed. As pressure and temperature increase the creation of

oil and gas occurred. At the same time that the oil and gas were being created with

temperatures and pressures rising, earthquakes and shifts in tectonic plates caused

traps to be formed. A trap is formed when permeable rock meets with impermeable

rock. This is where oil and gas reservoirs are created. The bottom layer of the trap is

permeable and the hydrocarbons move to the high permeable layers. But eventually

the hydrocarbons reach a place where the rock above them is no longer permeable,

this is when reservoirs begin to build in numbers high enough to produce from.

Even the best traps are not filled completely with oil and gas. Salt water, also

known as brine takes up some space. The brine lies underneath the hydrocarbons in

small pore spaces of the rock. The reason that the brine in underneath the oil and gas

id dye to a difference in densities. You might be asking yourself, How is there salt

water in these underground formations? The answer is that the salt water found

coating the grains of the rocks where this oil and gas occur is because it is actually

ancient sea water from when the hydrocarbons were formed. The salt water got

trapped in the same way that the animal remains did. As hydrocarbons move to form

reservoirs much of the salt water is displaced, this helps reduce the amount of water

that is produced. Producing water is not good for many reasons one of them being that
it can damage the equipment used to drill for and produce oil. Unfortunately, even

with the displacement of this water anywhere from 10-50% of pore spaces could

contain salt water, even with oil and gas present. Oil gas and water are separated in

layers due to densities, or weights. Water is the heaviest so it coats the pore spaces

with the gas and oil. Gas occurs in the highest parts, and the oil is below the gas but

above the water. (Bourgoyne, Millheim, Chenevert, & Young, 1986)

Understanding the how oil and gas are formed is crucial, but what is next. The

next step is the exploration process. When exploring for oil and gas geologist use

seismic exploration to find the hydrocarbons that are hidden deep within the earth.

Seismology is the study of natural and man-made vibrations in the earth. Vibrations

take the form of sound waves, these waves are recorded and analyzed to help

geologist understand if there is or is not hydrocarbons in that area. In seismic

exploration geophysicists search for hydrocarbon traps that are thousands of feet

below the surface of the earth. The equipment must be accurate and the tests must be

ran over many miles of surface area to increase the chances of finding a possible

reservoir. The seismic waves are sent through the thousands of feet of rock by using

large vibrator trucks. The waves are sent all the way down through the many layers of

rocks and bounce back up with a few differences. Those differences are recorded by

geophones and examined by scientists in a lab using high tech equipment to determine

if the differences indicate a hydrocarbon trap. One of the way the information about

the differences of the vibration waves on the exploration site that was recorded by the

geophones is by taking a record, or seismic section, which is a two-dimensional slice

of the earth from a downward view. Experts look at the seismic sector to determine if

there is a possible hydrocarbon trap. A more accurate and recent technique is called

three dimensional seismic. Three dimensional is basically several seismic sections put

together by a computer program in a way that experts can look at the formation of the

earth in that area from many different points of views and better be able to understand

what is going on in the formation and to be able to see if there are any hydrocarbons

buried beneath the earth. Four-dimensional seismic exploration is the repeating of

three-dimensional seismic exploration over a period of time. Four-dimensional

seismic exploration is even more accurate than the three-dimensional seismic

exploration and the two-dimensional seismic exploration because it has a key factor

that the other two dont, this factor is time. Some wells are drilled with no previous

tests ran on the area, these wells are known as wildcat wells and are risky and rarely

completed. (Hyne, 2012)

From the complexity of the creation of oil and gas to the complicated tests and

the experts who have to read the tests, the exploration and creation of petroleum is no

easy process. Petroleum is an investment, and in todays world a necessity as well.

Investing in petroleum could be very beneficial or very economically depressing. As

technology gets better more and more huge oil wells are being discovered and drilled.

As technology advances I predict the production of oil to become more efficient. I

believe that the production of oil is what powers a better tomorrow in the world.
Works Cited
American Association of Petroleum Geologists. (2017). Petroleum Through Time, What is
Petroleum? Retrieved 11 20, 2017, from www.aapg.org:
http://www.aapg.org/about/petroleum-geology/petroleum-through-time/what-is-
petroleum#3428310-links
Bourgoyne, A. T., Millheim, K. K., Chenevert, M. E., & Young, F. (1986). Applied Drilling
Engineering (Vol. I). Richardson, Tx: Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Hyne, N. J. (2012). Nontechnical Guide to petroleum Geology, Exploration, Drilling &
Production (Vol. III). PennWell Corporation.