Marketing lies of diamonds
In the industrial age, petroleum is mainly used as fuel oil and gasoline, and it is also the raw material of many chemical industrial products such as solutions, fertilizers, pesticides and plastics, and is known as "the blood of modern industry". In fact, the oil depletion crisis of mankind originated from a paper by American geologist Hubert in 1956. The main idea of this paper is that oil is a kind of fossil fuel, which was formed by the biochemical reaction between dinosaurs and algae buried underground 500 million years ago. It is inferred that oil resources will be exhausted in 2050. Although its core theory is a hypothesis, it has become the main basis of the modern theory of "biological deposition into oil"
Upstream and downstream distribution of petroleum industry in modern industry
To know whether oil will be exhausted, we must first understand how oil is formed. Today, there are two theories in academic circles.
Theoretical flow chart of paleontological sedimentary oil change
The first is the theory that biological deposition becomes oil. That is to say, oil is formed by the constant deposition of various animals and plants in oceans, rivers and lakes hundreds of millions of years ago and the complex changes of various geological conditions such as high pressure and sealing. It belongs to biological deposition and becomes oil, which is non-renewable; The reason is that oil has not been exhausted, mainly because the earth has been formed for 4.6 billion years, and the formation of oil is not an overnight event, but since the Paleozoic Cambrian biological explosion 540 million years ago, the remains of animals and plants have been deposited in rivers, oceans and lakes for a long time, isolated from the air, and affected by deep temperature and pressure, they will react with underground carbon and slowly form oil.
The Persian Gulf was a warm shallow sea before Quaternary.
The oil lakes in the Persian Gulf and the large oil fields in Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, China have been supported by this theory. The formation of these two oil-rich areas is related to the retreat of the Tethys Ocean (that is, the ancient Mediterranean), which belonged to the humid shallow sea area of the Tethys Ocean in Triassic.
Theoretical flow chart of petrochemical oil
The second is the theory of petrochemical oil. People think that oil is produced by carbon in the earth's crust. In the earth's crust, carbon exists in the form of hydrocarbons, which are lighter than water in rock crevices, so they penetrate upward along rock crevices and then gradually form oil through high temperature and high pressure environment. As long as there is carbon in the earth's crust, oil will be produced continuously. It is considered that oil has nothing to do with paleontological deposits, but is a primitive substance spewing out from the depths of the earth and is renewable. The obvious example is that there is a great overlap between the world oil distribution areas and the plate boundary areas, such as Algeria, Libya and Iran, members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Angola and Nigeria, with the exception of Africa.
The world oil distribution zone is highly coincident with the plate boundary zone.
Both theories have their own theoretical support, but they also have their own shortcomings. In addition to these two schools, there are many minority theories about the origin of oil, all of which have their own reasons. Therefore, it is still too early to draw a conclusion about the origin of oil. Naturally, there is no theoretical basis for judging that oil resources will be exhausted. Then, since oil was first refined in18th century, the rapid development of automobile industry has led to an exponential increase in oil consumption since 20th century, and oil depletion has always been our real concern. In fact, the global proven oil reserves are increasing year by year. 1882 estimated remaining oil is 95 million barrels; By 1980, the proven reserves of remaining oil reached 648 billion barrels; And the reserve 1993 rose to 999 billion barrels; In the last 20 18 years, the world's proven oil reserves have reached1696.6 billion barrels. Is oil really "infinite"?
World shale oil distribution map
In fact, looking at the data of more than 200 years, we can find that with the rise of oil price and the improvement of exploration, exploitation and refining technology, the proven reserves of oil are also increasing. For example, the first oil crisis in 1973 caused the price of crude oil to rise from less than $3 per barrel to more than 13, which also greatly increased the proven oil reserves in 80 years. From an economic point of view, when the oil price is high, oil producers will increase the exploration of new oil fields, and it will become profitable to find oil where the original cost is too high, and many new oil fields that were not discovered when the international oil price was low have been discovered, and finally the proven reserves have been greatly improved. Especially in 20 17, the "shale oil revolution" broke out in the United States. Under the background of high international oil prices at that time, shale oil that was difficult to be successfully exploited by fracturing technology broke out.
World heavy oil distribution map
From this perspective, oil will not be exhausted internally! Apart from the uncertain causes of oil formation, with the development of mining technology, it is difficult to accurately estimate the time of oil depletion. From June, 2065438 to June, 2007, an American energy giant announced that it had successfully tested shallow heavy oil exploitation technology in Permian basin, and successfully reduced the break-even point of each oil well to $65438+$06.5 per barrel. Even in the current international oil price downturn, Brent crude oil futures price remains at $67, which is still profitable for oil producers. Moreover, once shale oil and heavy oil exploitation technology are popularized, the global proven oil reserves will increase greatly.
World oil exploration has gradually shifted from land to sea.
Oil will not run out, but the price will go up. However, for China, a late-developing industrialized country, the current industrial structure is still dominated by manufacturing that consumes more energy, so the impact of future oil price changes on China's economic development is more obvious. Moreover, in today's world, oil is not only an energy resource, but also a strategic material for economic wars of big countries. See Endor's Big Chess of Oil. Of course, the rise in international oil prices will indirectly stimulate the technological development and utilization of new energy sources, such as wind energy, hydropower and solar energy.