INSIDE THE OIL INDUSTRY by Wil Mara Content Consultant Younas Dadmohammadi PhD Research Associate Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering University of Oklahoma BUSINESS BIG Essential Library An Imprint of Abdo Publishing abdopublishing com
1 THE PURSUIT OF INNOVATION Readers of the Wall Street Journal saw an encouraging headline in September 2015 Oil Companies Tap New Technologies to Lower Production Costs 1 By the early 2000s oil had become one of the world’s most critical yet most criticized resources It generated huge amounts of electricity and fueled a majority of the world’s cars But the evidence for its negative impact on the environment both during extraction and when used was mounting Oil was also at the center of international political controversies Headlines about these negative aspects of oil frequently appeared in newspapers Now the Wall Street Journal headline was highlighting the ways in which petroleum companies were trying to use technological innovation to improve efficiency and become more environmentally friendly The story was about new approaches to oil and gas discovery that industry leaders hoped would make the process less expensive The efforts were linked to the sinking price of gasoline By the summer of 2015 prices had dropped to their lowest levels in years In some parts of the United States one gallon 3 8 L of gas could be For more than a century oil has powered much of the world’s transportation 5
