Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Question for the Oil Men?

After all that crude oil is pumped out, what happiness with that huge empty space underground the cruse occupied?

Nothing, we been pumping for a long time.

Richard, to simplify things...

Oil sits in reserves full of water. In fact, in many oil wells, they produce many times the oil extraction in water.

Oil floats in water. So imagine an underground dome with two layers... oil and water. (Just like the vinegar and oil bottle)

You drill in and extract the oil, the water fills the void. And water pushes the oil upward.


Flow of oil and water in shale formations varies from this, but not much. Water is the main replacement. You have to crack the shale to get better flow. Oil and water both flow after the cracks are widened. (fracking).

Your not a dead dinosaur man , are you. Hasbeen

An oil reserve is usually in pores in a rock formation so it’s more like a water in a sponge than an underground lake so there’s no real void once the oils pumped out. It’s like putting a straw into a water soaked sponge and sucking it out. Once all the water is gone the sponge is still there

Some places, like around here.

It’s filled with CO2 and raw gas to squeeze what’s left out.

Yep.

Not like you might imagine a salt mine would be.

The pores in the rocks down hole are called Vugs.

It is like a sponge.

When we moved here back in the late 70's there was talk that the oil was gone and it would be shut down,this field and others.

Since that time they have come up with more ways to get it out of the ground.

They started with natural flow,then artificial lift(pumps and pumpjacks),then went to water flood,then co2 and some went to geothermal.

With co2 the oil come out of the ground lighter and fizzie like a soda.

There were also a bunch of chemical treats to get more of it out of the ground.

Who knows where they will head next.

Thanks all.

I know a guy down in Ohio that goes around to old abandoned wells, pops the caps, and pumps the oil off the top of the water. He splits the money he makes with the property owners. Although with oil being low now, it's probably not profitable to do.

knew a guy several years ago that retired from the oil field and bought a little work over rig. A lot of oil companies have old wells that aren't worth their time/money to keep open but would cost too much to plug so they let them dribble out a couple barrels a month. He would basically get the wells for free from the oil co. and rework them a little to get production up. I doubt he made more than a couple hundred bucks a month off any one well, but he probably had 50-100 of them.

The continent capsizes 😮

It just leaves more space for The Debil.

That's a good way to put it, along with the fact that natural gas is mixed in with the oil and water as well. In light of the immense amount of barrels produced out of the Permian, for example, the high powered reservoir engineers estimate that we've managed to extract only 45% of the oil that's in the ground. That's where new tech comes along and manages to get a little more, as plainsman mentioned. I too wonder what will be next, but there's still lots of oil in the ground in the Permian.

It’s called 4 D with the 4th dimension being Time. Newer 3 D shows how the reservoir’s oil has migrated over time compared to initial 3 D. From that, companies know how to do injection for more EOR (enhanced oil recovery).

That’s just part of it.

There's some super smart guys that figure that stuff out is all I know.

That's correct. Especially in certain areas, more than others.

Oil and gas pockets down here in the coastal regions have been known to shift quite a bit.

So, if an old seismic survey didn't show you are Jed Clampet, a newer one may.

I wonder why we lowered the speed limit during the Carter presidency to 55 mph and send us over there to fight for oil?
Lucy,
You got some splaining to do.

You’re point is real particularly as it relates to salt domes. I’ve seen older seismic that said “some “ and the same general area later that showed commercial. Domes are tricky compared to, say, the Austin Chalk.

I'm sure not one of those guys. But I sat in lots of meetings with those guys... LOL.

I have laid out and observed lots of 3-D seismic surveys, and seen the results compared to older surveys. Pretty eye opening.

Seen the big players pay for 100 square miles of 3-D, and only drill 2-3 wells.

Not that there wasn't oil and gas on the rest, it's just that those 2-3 wells made it well worth their time.

They sold lines of the survey, and took bids on remaining exploration too. They made lots of $$ on independents and wildcatters that way.