Long before oil rigs are built and drilling begins, surveys and testing must be done.
For thousands of years, ancient people utilized seeping surface oil (and its relatives, tar and asphalt) for various purposes --- medicine, fuel and as a patching and water-proofing material. It wasn't until the late 1800s that science was applied to locating underground oil deposits. Today, despite the quantum leap forward in technology from the 19th century, the same basic prerequisites still exist for oil to form: a source of oil, a porous and permeable rock (a "reservoir" rock) in which it oil accumulates and an impermeable cap-rock layer to trap the oil.
Instructions
1. Perform research of geologic surveys of the area you suspect contains underground oil. Although modern science still looks for clues that wildcatters in the 1800s also sought---notably dome-like rises in the earth's surface called anticlines---technology now provides more thorough views under the surface. Using gravitational, magnetic, seismic and aerial mapping techniques, dome-like structures can be located underground, too. Rock species and formations also must be studied. Sandstone and limestone, for example, are perfect reservoir rocks; they are relatively soft and permeable, providing a sponge-like structure in which the oil reacts chemically and gathers. They perfectly fit the ancient Greeks' description: "petros" means "rock" and "elaion" is "oil" --- petroleum.
2. Assemble a team of cartographers, geologists, geo-physicists, surveyors, aerial photographers, explosives experts and magnetic and gravity survey specialists. Using your research and recommendations, these people form your advance team that will go into the field and create maps, cross-sections and profiles of the areas to be explored. Establishing quadrangles that cover hundreds of miles across flat, rolling and mountainous terrain, they pinpoint areas where your follow-up teams will begin testing the subterranean geology.
3. Drill into the earth. Teams consisting of three truck-mounted drilling rigs, at intervals of three-quarters of a mile, bore into the surface to depths approaching 100 feet. Each team bores three holes about 100 feet apart, taking about an hour per team, before moving to the next indicated drilling site.
4. Insert 50 pounds of ammonium nitrate (fertilizer, basically) into each hole and spray each hole with a gallon of diesel oil. The "shooter" inserts an electric blasting cap into a blasting agent primer and lowers it to the bottom of the hole via an electric wire to detonate the charge. Three 50-pound sacks of explosive are added to each hole on top of the primer charge, topped by a few buckets of sand, and the wires are attached to a firing mechanism at the truck.
5. String geophones along the ground at hundred-yard intervals around the three-shot holes to a distance that equals 1.5 miles between the ends of the geophone lines.
6. Ignite the hole charges.
7. Have your stratigraphic crew members analyze the 60-foot rock core samples that the drillers provided. They check for permeability and porosity (the sponge-like quality of the rock) and then send the sample for more detailed lab testing.
8. Analyze and interpret the computer-generated seismic data that the explosions and resulting seismic waves created. Look for anticline formations, which appear as inverted bowls and can be single layers or multiple shelves. Oil can deposit in sandwich-like strata separated by impermeable rock. The West Guara field in Venezuela has 47 layers, where producers drill through low-yield strata to reach richer ones beneath.
9. Drill to verify oil deposits if you feel the preliminary tests are promising. This can cost $200,000 per well in the U.S. and twice that amount in other countries.
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