By: zuperman1
27 Sep 2004, 06:04 PM EDT
Msg. 21529 of 21553
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***READ***
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, marginal wells, often retain 80% of their oil even after 30 to 40 years of pumping using primary recovery methods. Without some form of enhanced recovery technology to extract it, this oil will remain in the ground forever.
In 1999, the Interstate Oil and Gas Commission estimated there were 419,280 "stripper" wells in the U.S. producing more than 316 million barrels of oil annually. In 1998, these wells represented 26.6% of the oil produced in the United States.
Today's oil prices are at historically high levels, in part due to OPEC and the other oil producing countries setting quotas with which they all have been able to comply.These quotas have helped to limit the amount of oil that is available in the marketplace, thereby drying up world oil reserves and driving prices to near record levels. Higher crude prices are slated to remain stable for some time.
Many experts also believe that at current production rates, even without quotas, the supply of conventional oil will be unable to meet the growing demand within the next ten years. Some analysts even predict that 50% of the world's current reserves, after factoring for future production at current rates, will be depleted by 2015.
The world needs approximately 72 million barrels of crude oil per day. The U.S. uses between 14-17 million barrels of crude oil per day, and we produce less than 6 million barrels daily. Emerging economies in Asia, Mexico and South America will continue to grow and require more oil, and ultimately, demand will exceed production.
There will come a day when primary pumping methods will yield no oil, leaving industrialized countries to rely completely on technology to harvest their reserves. To ensure that the U.S. has sufficient oil at a stable price, America needs to increase its domestic production. Our technology is designed to help meet this demand.
