The Pros And Cons Of Offshore Drilling

Offshore Drilling Offshore drilling has been a vital means of gasoline and oil production for many years in America and all over the world. The process of drilling for oil in the ocean has been one of the greatest technological breakthroughs in the past few decades. The act of drilling for oil has been around for hundreds of years, but the process of extracting oil from beneath the seafloor was not perfected or effective until forty years ago. The process of offshore drilling is when engineers drill holes through the seabed, which then creates the opportunity to extract oil and natural gas. The extracted oil comes from the rocks beneath the seabed (Offshore Drilling Basics). This oil is extremely valuable worldwide, especially in

Soon after, on September 10, 1960, The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, was created at the Baghdad Conference (Offshore Petroleum History). This had many countries involved, such as Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela (Offshore Petroleum History). In just the Gulf of Mexico, there are many offshore gas operations going on, with about 200 oil rigs, which facilitate the production of these petroleum products (Number offshore rigs). However, offshore drilling has been one of the most controversial issues all over the world, especially in the United States. President Trump, his administration, and many world leaders argue that offshore drilling is necessary to achieve maximum oil extraction and cheaper gas rates. This need is supported and explained by the fact that global reserve facilities are dramatically declining. On the other hand, many contend that offshore drilling will threaten the treasured oceans and water, poison and degrade the surrounding communities, and harm multitudes of wildlife that comes with the inevitable oil spills. Offshore drilling has a major negative impact on the water, ocean floor, air quality and

Oil is made of plants and animals that died millions of years ago, and as time passes, these remains are buried deeper beneath the ocean floor. When heat and pressure are added, the carbon in the plant and animal remains changes into hydrocarbons, which is the main ingredient of crude oil (Freudenrich, 2). The process of oil drilling starts off with the core of having an oil rig installed. The rig is very stable and can be supported several hundred meters in the ocean. The step right before the drilling occurs must be the step where an oil and gas "trap" must first be located in the ocean (Freudenrich, 3). Although locating these traps are very difficult because of the great depths of the water and poor visibility, engineers have created a seismic surveying, a system, which analyzes and finds a safe and stable area where there may be oil to drill up from beneath the surface (Freudenrich, 2). The tough part is that the engineers are not certain whether there is oil until they penetrate the trap with a drill. The technology behind the drill occurs above the surface in which advanced computer technology uses a navigation device (Freudenrich, 2). This sends information to the controller, which allows the engineers to have the exact location to which the oil is believed to be. Then steam is forced down the trap, which