Gasoline primer

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by Yelof

Thanks for that troubleshooter, I had heard of the "hot deep" theory before.

I have downloaded Gold's 1992 paper and will study it at dept when I have time.

One thing strikes me is if oil is a renewable resource why did oil production in the US peak in 1970 and why has it not recovered yet?

perhaps it is possible that oil is a biotic product but the process of it's biotic creation is slow and reservoirs can be emptied and only refill in timescales that are of no use to Mankind

It could also be a function of market trends or possibly a policy designed to forcibly limit the market or a limitation of production capacity as opposed to available reserves.

[xoxoxoBruce]

An awful lot of the wells you see throughout the south and southwest, are the old pump type. The oil doesn't "gush" anymore and it's difficult/expensive to extract. Those wells are shut down unless the market price exceeds a threshhold that makes it economically viable to open them again.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

An awful lot of the wells you see throughout the south and southwest, are the old pump type. The oil doesn't "gush" anymore and it's difficult/expensive to extract. Those wells are shut down unless the market price exceeds a threshhold that makes it economically viable to open them again.

I'll try to find an article on it but one of the theories to reinvigorate the wells is to start flooding them with saltwater and float the oil up as well as preventing underground pockets from forming.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I remember seeing an illustration in some magazine where they were injecting water under high pressure into something like every 3rd or 4th well in a field. That forced the oil that was trapped in the sand and shale, to migrate toward the wells that were still pumping. It seemed like an attempt to strip the bottom of the barrel, so to speak.