Petroleum geochemistry and geology / Геохимия и геология углеводородов

The continually rising standards of petroleum geoscience and oil search require an ever greater knowledge of the fundamental nature of petroleum, its origin, and its behavior in the rocks of the earth’s crust. In the early stages of the petroleum era, most oil men were not much concerned about the how, why, and when of oil and gas; all they cared to know was where. Those years are gone, and it is now more and more recognized that the how, why, and when of petroleum are critical keys to where it should be sought.

Someone has said that we will never know the answers to the problems of the origin, migration, accumulation, and preservation of petroleum until the last drop is found. Perhaps this is so; but equally certain is it that we will not come close to finding this last drop until we know more of these answers.

With all the current talk of oil shortages and “running out of oil and gas,” we still probably have not used up half of the earth’s petroleum accumulations, and it is even questionable whether we have yet discovered half of them. It is a fact, however, that we have found the easiest, most accessible, and least expensive portion, and that the remainder will only be found and recovered through more sophisticated methods than those of the past. And these methods will in a large part be based on better knowledge of the chemical and physical properties of petroleum and the principles of chemistry and physics that control its origin, its movements, its concentration into commercial deposits, its preservation, and its ultimate recovery from the rocks. Moreover, this knowledge will benefit us not only as regards conventional oil and gas deposits but also with respect to alternative hydrocarbon sources such as asphalt sands, oil shales, coal gas, gas-charged waters, and the like. <...>