Have you ever thought about what would happen if the United States were to run out of oil tomorrow? It's really interesting to consider because so many things in the United States depend on oil in one way or another. Just about everyone in the United States has a car. But without gasoline, which comes from oil, none of those cars could run. The same goes for all the school buses and taxis. Every big airplane has jet engines. Jet engines burn jet fuel, which comes from oil. So no airplanes could fly.
And think about all the stores in your town. Everything they sell arrives at their store by truck. The trucks burn diesel fuel. And what do you suppose the diesel fuel comes from? You guessed it -- oil. So there would be no way to get food or anything else to your neighborhood without oil.
Trains all burn diesel fuel too. Plastic comes from oil. No oil means no plastic. The list goes on and on like this. The United States absolutely depends on oil. Without it, almost everything would grind to a halt. When you hear everyone on the news talking about oil, and your parents talking about the price of gas all the time, this is why. Oil is almost as important as oxygen.
Have you ever wondered what oil is? Where does it come from? Why do we need so much? Can we replace it with something else?
These are all great questions. Let's look for some answers!
What is "oil"? And what are all the things - like gasoline, kerosene and diesel - that come from oil? Oil is a gooey, slippery black fluid that comes out of the ground. Sometimes it's close to the surface and actually bubbles out of the ground. Other times it lies in giant lakes buried miles underground. Normally what you do to get it out of the ground is drill a hole maybe a foot in diameter down to the lake of oil. Then you line the hole with a big pipe. And then you start pumping the oil out of the ground. One of these underground lakes might hold millions or billions of gallons of oil.
How did the lake of oil get there? Imagine an ocean 300 million years ago. This ocean is filled with tiny plants and animals like plankton and diatoms. Over millions of years the plants and animals reproduce, die and sink to the bottom of the ocean. Later, all these dead plankton bodies are covered in sand and clay. These bodies, like all living things, contain lots of carbon and hydrogen atoms. It takes millions of years and incredible heat and pressure, but these thick layers of dead bodies eventually transform into lakes of underground oil. Many of these lakes of oil are found underneath our current oceans. Others are found on land, where oceans used to be millions of years ago.
Image courtesy © BP p.l.c.
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When we pump oil out of the ground, what we are pumping is all these dead plants and animals. But the heat and pressure has turned the carbon and hydrogen in their bodies into different sized chains of hydrogen and oxygen. So now we can see what oil is. It's a liquid made up of hydrocarbon chains. The chains all have different lengths. Some chains contain only a few carbon atoms. Others are dozens of carbon atoms long.
The oil you pump out of the ground is called crude oil or petroleum. It has all of these different chains mixed together. It is almost useless like this. But, if you can separate the chains and sort them by length, they can be really useful. For example, if you take crude oil and you separate out all the chains that are seven or eight carbon atoms long, what you get is a fluid that we call gasoline. The process of separating the chains like this is called refining.
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Oil Rig Crew
A roughneck works on the floor of a drilling rig to attach new pieces of pipe to the drill string, etc. It takes two to four roughnecks on the floor at all times to run a rig.
A roustabout is a general helper - helps unload stuff, stack stuff, etc.
A gang pusher is the leader of a group of roustabouts.
A motorman is the mechanic in charge of the motors and engines on the rig.
A mud engineer controls the mud mixture (drilling fluid) sent down the hole.
A derrickman is at the top of the derrick controlling the pipe moving in and out of the hole.
A driller is in charge of everyone on the crew.
A tool pusher is the person in charge of a drilling rig.
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