Say"Black gold"This kind of thing is commonplace in our lives, it is estimated that every family has a car or motorcycle, here I don't want to talk about the quality of these cars, we only say that oil is good, after all, oil is the blood of these cars. Of course, oil is not only our energy source, but also a country's strategic reserve resource. So, which country has the most reserves?Many people may first think of the Middle East countries, but in fact, no, the country with the largest reserves in the world is the United States.
Why has the United States become the world's largest oil producer?That, of course, is because of the breakthrough in shale oil technology. Unlike the Middle East, where there are only raw oil resources, and the political instability has not fully utilized these oil resources, the United States has successfully raised the oil industry to a new level with the rapid breakthrough of shale oil technology, and has managed to control the right to control the oil.
According to the data, the United States has the second-largest shale oil reserves in the world, and if the technical capabilities are fully utilized, the United States can extract about 58 billion barrels of oil, which is one-sixth of the world's shale oil reserves.
Looking at China, China's oil shale reserves are about 32 billion barrels, ranking second in the world, and the gap with the United States is still relatively large, while the shale oil reserves in Russia can reach about 75 billion barrels, ranking first in the world, but this is undoubtedly related to geographical factors.
It is worth mentioning that before the invention of shale oil technology in the United States, China's shale reserves once accounted for as much as half of the world's reserves, and had the strength to be comparable to Russia.
What is the emergence of shale oil?Let's start with history. Around the 30s, an American geologist first proposed the concept of shale oil. At the time, he offered a relatively simple explanation, arguing that the shale formations contained a large amount of oil, and the reserves were very large, only about 3,500 meters underground.
The news shocked the world, and geologists also said that there are more than 10 trillion shale oil reserves in the world, which is enough to show that the reserves of shale oil are larger than the original oil that people use today.
However, despite the abundance of shale oil, almost all of it is buried at a depth of 3,500 meters, which is a very difficult question of how to extract itAt that time, the state of technology was mediocre, and there was no technology in the world capable of extracting shale oil, so the argument was largely shelved.
You know, it is possible to go up to 3,500 meters, but it is extremely difficult to go down to 3,500 meters, and how to dig deeper, mining at such a deep ground is a difficult problem, which is simply not the same as building an aircraft engine, and even now, it is still a very advanced technology.
In this case, the United States since the last century.
Research on underground shale oil began in the thirties and forties, and continued for a long time.
It took 50 or 60 years for new progress to take place.
It wasn't until the 21st century that breakthrough technologies really emerged that could minimize costs in the process of extracting shale oil.
This technological breakthrough can be said to be a milestone, according to the data, the United States only really completed the breakthrough in shale oil extraction technology in 2008, at that time it could basically extract about 500,000 barrels per day, but today, the United States can extract about 9 million barrels a day.
It is necessary to mention the data mentioned above. The U.S. now has about 58 billion barrels of shale oil reserves, and a few large basins alone account for 80 percent of shale oil extraction. The United States has managed to get close to the oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia, which is only capable of extracting 10 million barrels per day.
If you go back to 2022, the ** production in the United States at that time actually reached 1190,000 barrels per day, is the world's largest producer, and shale oil production accounts for about 40%.
It is not difficult to see from this that the technical strength of the United States in the field of shale oil is very successful. The history of the United States has changed completely. From the world's largest oil importer, it has now become the world's largest oil producer, and even exports about 3.6 million barrels of oil per day. This has allowed the United States to directly achieve the achievement of "turning over and becoming a landlord".
The World Petroleum Organization is concerned about this situation and is trying to target the United States by lowering the international ***.
At one point, they lowered the international *** to about $31. However, the processing and sale of shale oil in the United States** is about thirty or forty dollars, and the United States** also uses subsidy policies to counter the World Petroleum Organization. Therefore, this method did not have much effect on the United States, but made the United States move forward more vigorously.
From the advent of shale oil technology to innovation and current development, the United States has been very successful in the shale oil field. Not only are they self-sufficient, but they are also able to export portions, thus consolidating their position internationally and creating a large number of jobs in the shale oil industry.
As for China's shale oil technology?In short, China's shale oil technology can be described as "steadily accumulating" compared to the "rapid breakthrough" of the United States. Our geography is very different from that of the United States, which leads to the fact that the distribution of shale oil in our country is not quite the same as that of the United States.
In addition, China's shale oil exploitation is more difficult, and fracturing technology has not made new breakthroughs, resulting in low quality of shale oil in China, high viscosity, and the final oil output is still insufficient compared with the United States.
However, this is not to say that shale oil cannot be extracted in our country. In the vast geographical area of our country, such as the Songliao Basin, the Qaidam Basin and the Junggar Basin, there are large reserves of shale oil. Despite the high cost of about sixty or seventy US dollars, China's shale oil exploitation has not stopped, but continues to develop. According to relevant data, in 2008, China's shale oil extraction was only about 470,000 tons, and in 2022, it has reached about 3.2 million tons.
Although compared with the United States, China is still slightly deficient in shale oil technology, but the United States has gone through a long process from its initial proposal to its subsequent development. China does not have so much time to study, and the United States has established a complete shale oil production and processing system, including a follow-up service system. In this case, the shale oil technology of the United States can be compared with the solar technology of our country, both of which are in the leading position in the world. In addition, the United States has a large number of shale oil technicians, which are the result of their accumulation over the years.
However, China has a slow start in the field of shale oil and can only catch up through gradual development and cultivation. To sum up, this is not a difficult problem for our country. Today, shale oil technology is many times better than it was at the beginning, and given enough time, it is only a matter of time before China catches up with the United States in shale oil technology. In the future development process, I believe that China will focus on shale oil technology, let us wait and see, and look forward to China's strength becoming stronger and stronger!