This well, drilled in 1859 near Titusville, Penn., was the first commercial
oil well in the United States.
Courtesy United States Department of Energy.
Pinch at the pump
(4/2009) Well 2008 saw it all. The highest prices/barrel in current dollars (and even inflation corrected dollars since the birth of the industry in the 1860s) and the lowest price since 2005. This >$150 to <$40 swing took place with almost no change in demand or supply - sounds like non-geological factors at work here. I have left the brief yearly intros to thsi module in place below to give you a sense of the recent history. Most of this module will however focus on the geology of oil and gas although this apparently has only a small amount of control of the price of gas for your moped.
(4/2008) The deeper the hole in the ground, the deeper the hole in your pocket. Since April 2007 (see below) crude oil prices have crept ever higher and are now reliably sitting at over $100/barrel. And the prices seem to have begun their climb for the summer vacation season. Work through this module and hopefully you will understand some of the complexity that goes into finding and producing petroleum products.
(4/2007) And the world rolls on. Since April 2006 crude oil prices spent about 4 months over $70 a barrel in May-Aug 2006 but have spent most of the rest of the time hovering around $60/barrel. in the last month the prices seem to have begun their climb for the summer vacation season after a relatively mild winter.
(4/2006) The paragraph below was the opening of this module in Spring 2005. What has changed in a year? Well prices have continued high and we all know that as a result of some bad weather in the Gulf of Mexico, gasoline prices did pass $3/gallon in the Fall of 2005 for a short time. Prices this morning (April 3, 2006) passed $67/barrel on the back of political uncertainty in Iran and Nigeria. Can't be sure of the future but $2/gallon gasoline may be gone forever.
(2005) Gassed up lately? Then you know the news. Gas prices are approaching an all time high at the pump - crude oil prices have been near or above $50 a barrel since early this year and are opening tomorrow (April 4, 2005) at an all time high, $57. Cuts in target production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), uncertainty in Iraq combined with already-low crude oil supplies promises to dramatically hike the price of a fillup this summer, $3/gallon is not an impossibility.
But hey, things are looking up for oil producers making a good buck from the expensive process of finding and producing oil.
Time was, oil fields were located by looking for "seeps," places where oil oozed naturally from the ground. The first commercial field, around Oil City, Pennsylvania, was found this way, as were major finds in Borneo, the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.
But seeps are getting rare these days, and the technique is useless under water, where lots of oil is being pumped.
Before we get to some brainstorms for finding oil cheaper and faster, where does oil come from anyway?
©1999,
University of Wisconsin, Board of Regents.