The Global Oil and Gas Factory

Abstract

To discuss Peak Oil it is important that everyone have a similar understanding of what oil is and how the oil that is currently extracted from the Earth by large national oil companies (NOCs) and international oil companies (IOCs) was formed, but rarely, millions of years ago. In purely chemical terms, oil is a blend of molecules consisting of hydrogen and carbon: hydrocarbons. One can regard oil as the end product of a gigantic manufacturing process deep down in the Earth’s crust. The hydrogen and carbon in oil come from water and carbon dioxide that were in circulation in the living world many millions of years ago. It was primarily algae, plankton, and tiny marine plants that bound the hydrogen and carbon into molecules in their bodies and then sank to the bottom of shallow seas and lakes where they accumulated in thick layers of biological sediment.