Petroleum and its derivatives

How is shale oil extracted?

Oil shale

Many times, scientists discover an oil substance or petroleum somewhere, but they face problems in extracting it from that place, and we will talk here about the extraction of shale oil, the name of which has spread recently and created a great stir among the oil-exporting and oil-producing countries, but before that there was no It is necessary to learn about shale oil, how to do it? Where is it located and how is it extracted from the ground?

Shale oil is a type of light oil, which is produced through the deposition of a substance called kerogen in rocks, which is transformed by temperature into a liquid hydrocarbon substance. Crude oil is originally hydrocarbon substances found deep in the earth, so it is considered... Shale oil is an alternative to crude oil, but the extraction process is much more expensive than crude oil.

Its formation throughout history

According to studies, the process of formation of shale oil dates back to a hundred million years ago. When the North American continent was divided into two parts due to the wide areas of the sea, and when the sea level decreased, these areas retreated back, forming highly fertile pastures and seas that led to the death of many living organisms that... They lived in it, and with the passage of time, these organisms turned into fossils, and these fossils, in turn, were exposed to high temperatures and pressure from Earth’s gravity, so they turned into oil, and since there were no factors that would qualify them to turn into liquid oil, they became rock.

Read also:How is oil extracted?

Its locations and extraction methods

The United States of America is classified as one of the countries that contain the most shale oil, containing 75% of the total global reserve, and later its presence was discovered in neighboring regions such as Canada.

As for how to extract it, the pressure of gases is used to extract it on the surface of the earth, but in order to explore the location of the oil, the pressure used here is reduced by using water, and if the equipment stops extracting it for one reason or another, it remains in its place until it is returned in the future to extract it. The process of extracting oil is considered one of the most difficult processes, because it requires searching for oil rocks by digging in the ground or even by mining and blowing up the place. After the drilling is done, the process of surface distillation is applied to it, so that it is exposed to high heat without the use of oxygen, and the composition changes. The chemical process of the rock itself begins with the separation of kerogen from the rock, after which the oil refining process begins.

Read also:How to distill petroleum
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