THE PETROLEU/V Consumei C & E N begins the publication of ο series o f papers in which the Commercial Chemi c a l Development Association takes asearchi ng look at the post, present, and future needs of one of t h e chemical industry's biggest customers
tnfroduction -I HE petroleum industry, while not the largest user o f chemicals, is a tremendous factor in the nation's economy. In terms of capital investment, the pe troleum industry is considered the fourth largest in the country—exceeded only by agriculture, die rail roads, and the publie utilities. It has been estimated that the total gross assets of the petroleum industry i n this country amounted to $33 billion in 1950. Of this slightly over $25 billion were in plant, prop erty and equipment· Of this huge total some 56% was invested in production, 18% in refining, 13% in transportation, 12% i n marketing, and the remaining 1% in miscellaneous places. The daily throughput of the petroleum industry, a s measured by the amount of crude oil processed, lias been steadily increasing, reaching a peak in 1951 of 6,757,000 barrels per day—equivalent to nearly 720 billion pounds per year. Contrast this with the total production of aliphatic chemicals esti mated at 15 billion pounds per year and it is possible t o get an idea of t h e magnitude of the industry. The petroleum industry is obviously of monster proportions—if one could only develop a chemical which would be needed at the rate of one pound per barrel of crude oil for some purpose he would have a potential annual market of over 1.2 million tons per year—a figure any commercial chemical development man -would like to aim at. Chairman C. P. NEIDIG While, Weld A Co. Philadelphia, Pa,
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CH EM.I c AL; :AN Ο ENGINEERING NEW
INDUSTRY— >f C h e m i c a l s Chemicals Used In Crude Production THOMAS V . MOORE, Standard Oil Development Co v 15 West 51st St., New York 19, Ν. Y.
In its search f o r a d d i t i o n a l sources of crude oil the petroleum industry m a y b e expected to use more a n d more of the chemicals which have a i d e d in the d e v e l o p m e n t o f m o d e r n drilling a n d e x p l o r a t o r y technology J. H E petroleum industry of the United States produces approximately t w o billion barrels of crude oil annually from almost half a million wells. This production rate is maintained by drilling approximately 4 0 , 0 0 0 wells per year. T h e techniques of chemical engineering are widely used in the development of oil fields and in'producing crude oil, and the operations of the producing branch of the petroleum industry are more closely re lated to the unit operations of the chemi cal industry than are those of most mineral industries. It is not surprising, therefore, t o find that the petroleum industry con•sumes large quantities of chemicals in its producing operations. Unfortunately, little information is available on the amounts .and value of all the chemicals used in petroleum production. A recently pub lished estimate indicates that the industry uses approximately $250 million worth of materials annually in preparing drilling m u d although the materials that go into drilling m u d make u p t h e majority of the chemicals consumed b y the producing branch of the industry, other operations also consume large quantities of a w i d e variety of chemicals. I n this paper it is proposed to review briefly the operations of the producing branch of the oil indus try and t o describe h o w some of the more important chemicals are used.
portant of the geophysical prospecting methods used in searching for structures favorable for oil accumulation is the seis mograph. Seismic waves are generated by a n explosion in a shallow hole. These w a v e s travel through the earth's crust, are reflected or refracted and are detected and recorded b y a series of geophones, ampli fiers, and recording equipment. Figure 1 Figure 1.
shows the explosion at a typical seismo graph shot point. From the record of the seismic w a v e s , an example of which is shown in Figure 2 , it is possible to learn something of the subsurface structure of the earth, and to select locations favorable for the occurrence of oil. Dynamite is generally used as the explosive seismic operations, in amounts ranging from a
Explosion at a typical seismograph shot point
Exploration In exploration for petroleum, large quan tities of dynamite are used. T h e most im
'VOLUME
3 0,
NO.
8 » · FEBRUARY
2 5,
1952
745
