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An oil field with dozens of wells. This is the Summerland Oil Field, near Santa Barbara, California, before 1906

An oil field is a region with an abundance of oil wells extracting petroleum (crude oil) from below ground. Because the oil reservoirs typically extend over a large area, possibly several hundred kilometres across, full exploitation entails multiple wells scattered across the area. In addition, there may be exploratory wells probing the edges, pipelines to transport the oil elsewhere, and support facilities.

Because an oil field may be remote from civilization, establishing a field is often an extremely complicated exercise in logistics. For instance, workers have to work there for months or years and require housing. In turn, housing and equipment require electricity and water. Pipelines in cold areas may need to be heated. Excess natural gas may be burned off if there is no way to make use of it, requiring a furnace and stacks, and pipes to carry it from well to furnace.

Thus, the typical oil field resembles a small self-contained city in the midst of a landscape dotted with drilling rigs and/or the pump jacks known as "nodding donkeys" because of their bobbing arm. Several companies, such as BJ Services, Bechtel, Esso, Schlumberger Limited, Baker Hughes and Halliburton, have organizations that specialize in the large-scale construction of the infrastructure and providing specialized services required to operate a field profitably.

More than 40,000 oil fields are scattered around the globe, on land and offshore. The largest are the Ghawar Field in Saudi Arabia and the Burgan Field in Kuwait, with more than 60 billion barrels (9.5×10⁹ m³) estimated in each. Most oil fields are much smaller. According to the US Department of Energy (Energy Information Administration), as of 2003 the US alone had over 30,000 oil fields.

In the modern age, the location of oil fields with proven oil reserves is a key underlying factor in many geopolitical conflicts.^[1]

The term oilfield is also used as a shorthand to refer to the entire petroleum industry. However, it is more accurate to divide the oil industry into three sectors: upstream (crude production from wells and separation of water from oil), midstream (pipeline and tanker transport of crude) and downstream (refining and marketing of refined products).

See also[link]

Energy portal

• Drilling fluid
• Drilling rig
• List of oil fields
• List of oilfield service companies
• Natural gas field
• OAPEC
• Oil field acronyms
• Oil well
• Oilfield terminology
• OPEC
• Petroleum play
• Subsea
• Underground hydrogen storage

References[link]

An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils.

Etymology[link]

First attested in English 1176, the word oil comes from Old French "oile", from Latin "oleum",^[1] which in turn comes from the Greek "ἔλαιον" (elaion), "olive oil, oil"^[2] and that from "ἐλαία" (elaia), "olive tree".^[3] The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek e-ra-wo, written in Linear B syllabic script.^[4]

Types[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Organic oils[link]

Organic oils are produced in remarkable diversity by plants, animals, and other organisms through natural metabolic processes. Lipid is the scientific term for the fatty acids, steroids and similar chemicals often found in the oils produced by living things, while oil refers to an overall mixture of chemicals. Organic oils may also contain chemicals other than lipids, including proteins, waxes and alkaloids.

Lipids can be classified by the way that they are made by an organism, their chemical structure and their limited solubility in water compared to oils. They have a high carbon and hydrogen content and are considerably lacking in oxygen compared to other organic compounds and minerals; they tend to be relatively nonpolar molecules, but may include both polar and nonpolar regions as in the case of phospholipids and steroids.^[5]

Mineral oils[link]

Crude oil, or petroleum, and its refined components, collectively termed petrochemicals, are crucial resources in the modern economy. Crude oil originates from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil.^[6] It is classified as a mineral oil because it does not have an organic origin on human timescales, but is instead obtained from rocks, underground traps, or sands. Mineral oil also refers to several specific distillates of crude oil.

Applications[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

A bottle of olive oil used in food

Cosmetics[link]

Oils are applied to hair to give it a lustrous look, to prevent tangles and roughness and to stabilize the hair to promote growth.^{[citation needed]} See Hair conditioner.

Religion[link]

Oils are commonly used in ritual anointments. As a particular example, holy anointing oil has been an important ritual liquid for Judaism and Christianity.

Painting[link]

Color pigments are easily suspended in oil, making it suitable as a supporting medium for paints. The oldest known extant oil paintings date from 650 AD.^[7]

Heat transfer[link]

Oils are used as coolants in oil cooling, for instance in electric transformers. Oils are also used to enhance heating in other applications, such as cooking (especially in frying).

Lubrication[link]

Oils are commonly used as lubricants. Mineral oils are more commonly used as machine lubricants than biological oils are.

Fuel[link]

Some oils burn in liquid or aerosol form, generating heat which can be used directly or converted into other forms of energy such as electricity or mechanical work. To obtain many fuel oils, crude oil is pumped from the ground and is shipped via oil tanker to an oil refinery. There, it is converted from crude oil to diesel fuel (petrodiesel), ethane (and other short-chain alkanes), fuel oils (heaviest of commercial fuels, used in ships/furnaces), gasoline (petrol), jet fuel, kerosene, benzene (historically), and liquefied petroleum gas. A 42 gallon barrel (U.S.) of crude oil produces approximately 10 gallons of diesel, 4 gallons of jet fuel, 19 gallons of gasoline, 7 gallons of other products, 3 gallons split between heavy fuel oil and liquified petroleum gases,^[8] and 2 gallons of heating oil. The total production of a barrel of crude into various products results in an increase to 45 gallons.^[8] Not all oils used as fuels are mineral oils, see biodiesel and vegetable oil fuel.

Chemical feedstock[link]

Crude oil can be refined into a wide variety of component hydrocarbons. Petrochemicals are the refined components of crude oil and the chemical products made from them. They are used as detergents, fertilizers, medicines, paints, plastics, synthetic fibers, and synthetic rubber. Organic oils are another important chemical feedstock, especially in green chemistry.

See also[link]

• Cooking oil
• Emulsifier, a chemical which allows oil and water to mix
• Lubrication
• Wax, a class of compounds with oil-like properties that are solid at common temperatures

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (October 2009)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oil

• Petroleum Online e-Learning resource from IHRDC

Look up field in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Field may refer to:

Expanses of open ground[link]

• Field (agriculture)
• Playing field, used for sports or games
• Lawn, mowed grass field
• Meadow, an untilled field
• Aerodrome, an air field

People[link]

• Field (surname)
• Field Cate, American child actor

Places[link]

• Field, British Columbia, Canada
• Field, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
• Field, Ontario, Canada
• Field Island, Nunavut, Canada
• Mount Field (disambiguation)

Science and mathematics[link]

• Field (mathematics), type of algebraic structure
• Field (physics), mathematical construct for analysis of remote effects
• Field (geography), with a definition similar to that of physics but in a different context and using unique models and methods
• Field (computer science), a smaller piece of data from a larger collection (e.g., database fields)
• Field-programmability, an electronic device's capability of being reprogrammed with new logic
• Field of sets, a mathematical structure of sets in an abstract space
• Electric field, term in physics to describe the energy that surrounds electrically charged particles
• Magnetic field, force produced by moving electric charges
• Electromagnetic field, combination of an electric field and magnetic field
• Field winding or field magnet, the stator of an electric motor
• Field of heliostats, an assembly of heliostats acting together

Sociology and politics[link]

• Field (Bourdieu), a sociological term coined by Pierre Bourdieu to describe the system of objective relations constituted by various species of capital
• Field Department, the division of a political campaign tasked with organizing local volunteers and directly contacting voters
• Sexual field, a term that describes systems of objective relations within collective sexual life

Businesses[link]

• Field Enterprises, a defunct private holding company
  • Field Communications, a division of Field Enterprises
• Field Records, a record label

Technical uses[link]

• Field (heraldry), the background of a shield
• Field (video), one half of a frame in an interlaced display
• Field, in flag terminology, the background of a flag

Other[link]

• Field of study, a branch of knowledge
• Field of view, the area of a view imaged by a lens
• Field of use, the subject matter of a patent license limited to some but not all uses of the invention
• Visual field, the part of the field of view which can be perceived by the eye's retina
• Depth of field, in photography, the distance in front of and beyond the subject that appears to be in focus
• Field Museum of Natural History, in Chicago
• FIELD (magazine), a literary magazine published by Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio
• Field (sculpture), by Anthony Gormley

See also[link]

• All pages beginning with "Field"
• All pages with titles containing "Field"
• Fields (disambiguation)
• The Field (disambiguation)
• Fielding (disambiguation)
• Feild, surname
• Feld, surname

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