How did our oil get under their sand?
820296
Those scheming Iraqis ! In spite of our technology and military they somehow managed to get our oil under their sands.\n\n   That is exactly why Bush wanted justice by making them return our oil. I am totally clueless how anyone can blame him.
27821
Natural resources\n\nThere is a substantial amount of petroleum and natural gas under the seabed: see North Sea oil.
679297
Not necessarily.  Oil that spills on the ground or into the water and is *never* recovered is a waste, but there's still plenty of energy inherent to the oil to make it worthwhile -- if the price is right.\n\nThe fact that the oil gushes out of the ground is because the drilling process has punctured a "bubble" (for lack of a better term) of petroleum that is under high pressure underground.  The puncture releases that pressure and forces the oil to the surface.  Now the trick is to control that flow without wasting any.\n\nOnce we control the flow of oil, it is then processed to make the petroleum products we have come to rely on so heavily -- motor oils, gasoline, aircraft fuels, kerosene, diesel, etc.\n\nA few years back, I was on the island of Aruba.  We visited one of the largest petroleum refineries in the world there -- produced something like 70% of the aviation fuel used by the Allies during the Second World War.  All the waste products they didn't need were dumped in a giant slag heap on one end of the island.\n\nForty years later, when oil prices had risen significantly, it became economically feasible to recycle that petroleum slag heap to produce more useful fuels from it.  So it didn't go to waste, it just wasn't the time.
1058059
You're on to something here. I'm starting to think that the Trojan war was over oil, too. How else could they get that big Horse into Troy?
490108
There's four times more discovered oil in the ground not being used than this is in currently being drilled.\n\nThere's enough oil in the United States that if it were all drilled we wouldn't need to import any oil from anyone.\n\nNext time you see some assclown liberal be sure to thank them for the $3 per gallon gas.
1154784
This is an oil driven eceonomy. We are looking.
8552
In many cases water is pumped into the wells in order to get the oil out.  I just hope we have a smooth transition from oil to solar and wind power, before we blow ourselves up with nuclear plants.
1179534
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Stop right there!\n\nPetroleum is found in the crust of the earth. As a matter of fact, it is found in porous permeable rock. That simply means it is found in rock that has tiny interconnected holes.\n\nThe oil is held in place by water beneath & a cap rock above. The oil sits on the water b/c it is less dense. The cap rock keeps it from escaping b/c it is impermeable & will not allow the oil through.\n\nEven though the crust is relatively thin, the oil is no where near the next layer, the mantle. If it were, it would be too hot & the oil would become part of the mantle melt.\n\nThe mantle is "plastic" being neither liquid or solid due to the immense pressure there. The crust "floats" atop the mantle b/c it is less dense.\n\nBottom line... petroleum does NOT lubricate anything in the earth & most certainly does not lub up the mantle/crust.\n\nAlso, while there is convection in the mantle, it does not "spin" around in the manner in which you speak.\n\nMy job is done here. :)
343533
Bush knocked it down because he heard there was oil there...I think Randi Rhodes said that the other day...or was it on the Daily Kos?  In any case, it was Bush's fault, that I'm sure of.
777787
yes and we sparked it when we invaded. perhaps an all out Arab cicil war is what our hidden adgenda really is so we can grab oil by the barrells full
9597
Ehh.. oil is pumped from just below the surface. The Core is made of Molten Lava, which isn't too useful a fuel source yet ;)\n\nNow, as for the caverns where we find oil, which is what I think that you're thinking of, those just empty gradually over time. Oil deposits aren't usually so large that draining the oil causes destability. It's the same thing as underground aquifers, which are a lot easier to find information on IMO.
63964
Probably zero. Oil pumping does cause subsidence in some areas. This means that the surface of the ground slowly sinks. Terminal Island in the middle of Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor has dropped almost 25 feet because of oil  and water pumping  and they had to build dikes around it to keep the sea out.\n\nMost of the time when oil is removed from rock it is naturally replaced by water and there is no empty space left behind. The spaces that oil comes out of are very small pores in rock like sandstone and limestone. Try pouring water on a piece of sandstone and you will see it soaks in; these are the pores that can hold oil. The natural strength of the rock prevents any sort of collapse and water fills the spaces as the oil is pumped out. In fact in most oil reservoirs the pressure created by the water is what "drives" the oil out of the rock and into the well..
43324
What takes the place of the oil depends on the drilling methods used.  Since the 1950's, secondary recovery processes such as hydraulic fracturing or waterflooding have been used to force fluids -into- the underground reseroirs of oil, forcing the oil -out- of the ground.  Thus, the fluids take the place of the oil. These secondary extraction processes allow drillers to extract much more oil from a well than was previously possible.\n\nIt's possible that a connection exists between hydrocarbon extraction and earthquakes (called "induced seismicity"), but there is no scientific concensus or proven "cause and effect" correlation between anthropogenic activity and earthquakes.\n\nI hope you can sleep easier now :)
360179
http://www.jordanjubilee.com/images/people/photos/xkefiya2.jpg\n\nYou must be in oil business?
1085158
we only produce 25 percent of what we use they claim so we get it from other allied countries. its bought alot cheaper than you think. the government pays less than half you see at the pumps for regular. there is enough oil and natural gas in the appalation mountains to last 2,000 years. there are other secret sites but they won't touch it as we would be paying 10 cents a gallon. the more they claim we don't have, the more profit they make. they don't want the easy route. it was discovered that we had so much excess oil athat many empty wells were being used to store it secretly, but they got caught to some point. the oil giants control the government.
951381
Basically you went for oil...and more oil
645427
We are importing about half of what we use now. If you would like to choose which half of our nation cannot use oil, then we could quit importing.\n\nIt isn't a matter of how much oil is in the ground. We can't produce it fast enough, or refine it fast enough to more than marginally outpace demand.