The Importance Of Harvesting Energy In Our Oil And Gas Reserves In Times Of Crisis
No one could have predicted that we would be living in a historic period of the Earth’s lifespan. The year 2020 started with a grim warning about a budding global health crisis as the novel coronavirus that originated from Wuhan, China (now known officially as the SARS-CoV-2) has begun spreading in every corner of the world. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected not only those who are physically suffering from the dangerous virus, but also the workforce and the economy that is largely dependent on the former.
Experts have feared that if this crisis goes way out of hand, it could cripple major industries in the world, as the operations will suffer heavy blow with the workers being threatened by the deadly disease. Specifically, the oil and gas industry that literally powers up every essential operations in the world will have to be protected amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just imagine how bad things could get if this industry shuts down due to the present crisis. At this point, we should already know how vital it is to work hard in locating fresh oil and gas reserves, more so preserving them when they are found.
Why Do We Need To Find More Sources Of Energy, Especially At This Time Of Crisis?
Discovering new oil and gas reserves is the lifeblood of the industry. Without new reserves to replace oil and gas production, the industry would die. However, measuring and valuing reserves is a scientific and business challenge because reserves can only be measured if they have value in the marketplace. There are other means to find new source of energy, particularly the renewable ones like biomass, but there remains some questions regarding this type of energy source’s efficiency. Thus, its value is still viewed to be less compared to the oil reserves that we have today.
The oil sands of Alberta, Canada are a good illustration of how difficult it is to accurately measure oil and gas reserves. Oil sands are deposits of bitumen, a molasses-like viscous oil that will not flow unless heated or diluted with lighter hydrocarbons. Although the Alberta oil sands are now considered second only to the Saudi Arabia reserves in the potential amount of recoverable oil, for many years these were not viewed as real reserves because they were not economical to develop. Just check https://grabfreerobux.com/ to get a hint of this issue.
By the mid-2000s, the main town in the oil sands region, Fort McMurray, was in the midst of a boom not unlike the gold rush booms of the
1800s. Housing and labor were scarce and the infrastructure was struggling to keep pace with the influx of people, companies, and capital. The development of the oil sands occurred because of a combination of rising oil prices and technological innovation. There were estimates that oil sands production could reach 3 million barrels per day (b/d) by 2020 and possibly even 5 million b/d by 2030.