Talk:Petroleum crude oil

Wikipedia has an article named "Petroleum"

The WP article was ported here and then torn apart. Some sections were deleted completely as being unneccessary or transient (i.e., a section on prices which can change drastically from day to day). Others were combined, such as combining the three separate sections on nation-by-nation production, consumption and reserves. The two sections on nation-by-nation exports and imports were deleted entirely ... too much data, this is an encyclopedic article rather than a data base of everything under the sun. The WP article had two many maps and graphs that were simply copied from their sources ... and again, too much data. Some new sections were added. The History section was greatly expanded. Other sections were completely re-written. Some broken links to references were replace by working links. Other references were changed. Very little of the WP article remains. Milton Beychok 19:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Milt, definitely a lot here; I'm going to need to take another pass through when I'm not so tired. One question/suggestion in the section on "Unconventional oil reservoirs": would you want to mention coal liquefaction? Also, something is hanging in the back of my mind around one of the challenges to some means of extraction is that the displacement or extraction volumes are not necessarily equivalent which in those circumstances create other environmental issues. Karl D. Schubert 02:13, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Term/title for the industry

Milt, would you have any opinion on a good title for the industry/economic area (i.e., what they call the "awl bidness" in Texas), as opposed to the engineering aspects of extraction and processing? There's certainly a need to have a top-level article that deals with economic and political aspects related to petroleum specifically.

I agree that such an article would be very useful. I don't know enough about that aspect to even start such an article. How about "Economics of oil" or "Economics of the petroleum industry" or "Petroleum economics" or "Petroleum economics and politics" ? Milton Beychok 20:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Having just looked at the usage with Sheila Heslin, which involved politics, cloaks, and daggers as well, I'm leaning toward "international petroleum industry" or "petroleum industry". Your term "economics of the petroleum industry" would be a logical subarticle dealing with things I don't understand, such as futures. Nick or Martin might have ideas. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

How about "Big Oil"? Just think of the confrontational subjects that could lead to such as: how big oil influences government ... starts wars ... ruins the environment ... makes obscene profits ... etc. What great fun!!! Thats why I studiously steered clear of all that in this article. Milton Beychok 21:14, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

You may have a wonderful idea...I'm working on my courage! :-) (I still like awl bidness, having lived in Texas) Howard C. Berkowitz 21:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Yet another term, for which I'm considering an article, is the military petroleum, oil and lubricants(POL), which is more focused on the logistical aspects, as well as targeting the POL system of an adversary . It would also be a subtopic of some general term for "oil". Howard C. Berkowitz 20:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I can offer no suggestions about this one. Sorry. Milton Beychok 20:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

This is less of a problem; POL is an accepted military term. It's the top-level parent article that I see as a challenge. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Did the American Petroleum Institute ever have a name for it? Karl D. Schubert 01:58, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

First-pass comments

Milt, definitely a lot here; I'm going to need to take another pass through when I'm not so tired. One question/suggestion in the section on "Unconventional oil reservoirs": would you want to mention coal liquefaction? Also, something is hanging in the back of my mind around one of the challenges to some means of extraction is that the displacement or extraction volumes are not necessarily equivalent which in those circumstances create other environmental issues. Karl D. Schubert 02:13, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Karl, coal liquifaction and any of the gas-to-liquids (GTL) technologies produce a synthetic liquid ... whereas petroleum crude oil is a "naturally occurring liquid" as defined in the first sentence of this article. Therefore, I don't believe those technologies should be included in this article ... they really should be a separate article (or articles).

As for your second point, are you talking about land subsidence possibly being caused by oil extraction? If so. I could cover that in the same way that I did for the Natural gas article. Let me know if that is what you meant. Thanks, Milton Beychok 04:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC)