Chapter 1608 Offshore Heavy Oil Project
Xiao Peng thought Fenves was looking for him to ask about football, after all, his throw had shocked quite a few people. But it turned out Fenves was looking for something else.
"Principal Fenves, did I hear you correctly?" Xiao Peng was so shocked that an egg could fit in his mouth. "Can you repeat that?"
Vincent on the side was also shocked. "Principal Fenves, don't you need to think this over more carefully? Maybe have a discussion with all parties involved?"
The reason why he was so shocked was that... Fenves actually invited Xiao Peng to join their school and participate in their school's offshore heavy oil project!
Ordinary people might not think anything of this, but if it gets to the eyes of someone with ulterior motives, they will easily label Fenves as a traitor.
Why is Texas the second-largest state in the US economy? It's the nation's largest energy producer! And UT Austin's petroleum engineering program is the best in the country!
Why do they focus on oil-related majors? Because the world's most amazing oil field is right here, the "Permian Basin Oil Field" in West Texas!
When we think of oil, we often think of traditional oil-producing nations like the Middle East, Russia, and Venezuela. However, the world's leading oil producer is the United States! The reason the US boasts such high production is due to its Permian oil fields.
'Permian' is a geological term that refers to the period between approximately 250 million and 299 million years ago.
Scientists have come to the conclusion that a major biological extinction event occurred at the end of the Permian period, and more than 90% of marine life suffered a devastating disaster. The specific cause has not yet been determined. Some say it was because a small star hit the earth, and some say it was because of the drop in sea level. In any case, after the large-scale extinction of that time, their corpses underwent more than 200 million years of changes and became the current oil and natural gas.
West Texas has the thickest Permian sediments in the world. The entire Permian Basin is about 190,000 square kilometers, which is basically the same size as Hebei Province. It can also be understood as a large oil field as big as Hebei Province!
The most amazing thing is that although this oil field has been mined for nearly a century, its production has exploded! The reason for this production boom is the shale revolution, which has produced a large amount of shale, which has been transformed into shale oil and shale gas.
While the US's shale oil technology is impressive, it also has its own challenges: high costs. OPEC countries, led by Saudi Arabia, exploited this high cost of shale oil to wage a price war with the US.
And they achieved their goal by doing so. The American shale oil industry suffered a huge blow. A large number of shale oil companies suffered losses, laid off employees, and went bankrupt, and production began to decline sharply.
However, under such circumstances, only one oil field in the United States has maintained stable production: the Permian oil field. This is the only one of the four major shale oil producing areas in the United States that has seen an increase in production.
The reason for their stable production is the shallow depth of the Permian shale, coupled with continued advancements in horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing, which have resulted in low extraction costs. Several University of Texas campuses have contributed significantly to these technological advancements.
The shale oil revolution has changed the world's energy landscape. The United States has now counterattacked and become one of the world's energy leaders by exploiting shale oil.
But they are still not satisfied: after all, not all shale oil producing areas are Permian oil fields, so they are now developing new oil technologies, and they are setting their sights on heavy oil.
As the name suggests, "heavy oil" is a very viscous petroleum. Because of its high viscosity and density, it is also called "heavy oil" by Westerners. However, in Daxia, "heavy oil" refers to the product after crude oil is extracted from petroleum and diesel, so "heavy oil" is used in Daxia to refer to this oil.
This type of oil presents a significant problem: its high content of asphalt and resin makes it difficult to flow, resulting in a state similar to "black mud." This poor fluidity makes it difficult to extract from the ground. Using conventional pumping methods, the recovery rate might be as low as 1%, and adding diluents or viscosity reducers won't improve recovery rates. So, while heavy oil extraction holds great promise and potential, it faces numerous technical challenges. Currently, Canada, the United States, Venezuela, and China are at the forefront of heavy oil extraction. China and the United States are among the top heavy oil extraction countries, and competition is fierce—after all, whoever masters this technology could potentially dominate the global energy market.
And what was Fenves saying? He was letting Xiao Peng participate in their school's offshore heavy oil project? Isn't that a state-class secret? You're letting someone from Daxia participate in this project? Are you crazy? Aren't you afraid of an investigation by the relevant authorities?
Fenves was very confident.
The project he mentioned is the latest technology that their school has been developing recently.
In fact, there are many heavy oil fields on the American continent, which have been shelved because of the high difficulty of extraction. However, people from the University of Texas at Austin have taken a different approach: they want to use the pressure of seawater and submarine hydrothermal vents to help extract heavy oil. According to their data, if they can find a suitable submarine heavy oil field, the extraction cost can be reduced to a terrifying level.
However, all their current technologies are only on paper. Even if all the relevant equipment is ready, there is still a serious problem: according to their concept, they need "undersea hot springs".
Heavy oil is extremely sensitive to temperature, with its viscosity decreasing by half for every ten-degree increase in temperature. Consequently, one method for extracting heavy oil involves injecting high-pressure steam into the well, using pressures as high as 17 megapascals to inject 350-degree steam into the well. However, this method has the disadvantages of a limited heating area, resulting in a recovery rate of only around 15%. Furthermore, the steam can be extremely damaging to equipment and requires a long operating cycle.
However, with the submarine hydrothermal vents, these problems will no longer be a problem. By utilizing the submarine hydrothermal vents, we can reduce the viscosity of heavy oil and reduce the difficulty of mining!
However, this method of extraction required hydrothermal vents, and Xu Xingde, aboard Xiao Peng's ship, was an expert in this field. He had explored numerous hydrothermal vents while accompanying Xiao Peng on shipwreck salvage, and together with biologist Hu Guohui, they had become the "leaders" in the field of hydrothermal vent geology and ecology. This was also why Fenves wanted Xiao Peng to join them: their technology for onshore oil extraction was undoubtedly state-of-the-art, but when it came to hydrothermal vents... they had absolutely no experience!
They need Xiao Peng!
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