How much oil, and where is it?

By the end of the 19th cen­tury, the widespread use of electricity could have meant bankruptcy for the oil enterprises. However, another out­standing invention had drasti­cally reversed the situation – the internal-combustion en­gine,¹ used mainly in automo­biles. Gasoline, a petroleum derivative, was now essential for self-propelled² vehicles, which were already available in most industrialized nations by the late 1920's. Now much more oil was needed to keep the world moving, but where would it be found? With passing years, oil's su­premacy in the global market has been reinforced³ by the ongoing⁴ discovery of new oil fields in various parts of the world – some 50,000 of them! But in terms of production, the important factor is, not the number of fields discovered, but their size. How big are they? Oil fields that contain at least five milliard barrels of recoverable⁵ oil – called supergiants – are the largest in the classification, while the second largest (from five hundred million to five mil­liard barrels) are called world-class giants. Al­though some 70 countries are listed in the "U.S. Geological Survey World Petroleum Assessment 2000" as having some oil re­serves, only a few of

them have giant oil fields. The larg­est number of supergiant oil fields are grouped in the Arabi­an-Iranian sedimentary⁶ basin, which comprises the area in and around the Persian Gulf. The search for new oil sourc­es has not stopped. Instead, it has been reinforced by state-of-the-art⁷ technology. Currently the Caspian Sea re­gion, made up of the nations of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakh­stan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, has caught the attention of oil producers. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, this region has huge potential for the exploitation of oil and natural gas. Alterna­tive exportation routes, such as through Afghanistan, are being studied. Additional po­tential has also been found in the Middle East, Greenland, and parts of Africa. The con­version of discovered hydro­carbons into energy and items for use in everyday life is a story in itself.

* The word "petroleum" comes from Latin and means "rock oil." It is customarily used to identify two closely related compounds — natural gas, also known as methane, and oil. Both substances sometimes seep⁸ to the sur­face through cracks in the earth. As for oil, it can be liquid or in the form of asphalt, pitch⁹, bitumen, or tar¹⁰.

* One of them, Alfred Bernhard Nobel, would later become the founder of the Nobel Prizes.

¹ internal-combustion engine - двигатель внутреннего сгорания

² self-propelled - само­движущийся

³ to reinforce - усиливать

⁴ ongoing - непрекращаю­щийся

⁵ recoverable oil – промышленные запасы нефти

⁶ sedimentary - осадочный

⁷ state-of-the-art - со­временное состояние, положение дел (в науке и технике)

⁸ to seep - просачиваться, капать

⁹ pitch - дёготь

¹⁰ tar - смола, гудрон

Дайте ответы на следующие вопросы:

1. What invention reversed the situation in the oil market by the end of the 19^th century?

2. What oil product became essential to keep the world moving by that time?

3. Were new oil field discovered by that time?

4. How big were they?

5. Has the search for the new oil sources stopped now?