Mineral Oil - Petrleum or Black Gold
Definition
Mineral Oil is the most important fossil fuel today
Occurrence of Mineral Oil
• It occurs in porous spaces of sedimentary rocks and is derived mainly from the decomposition of marine animal and vegetative matter over several million years.
• It can be found many hundreds of meters underground or under the seabed.
• It mainly occurs in dome shaped anticlines between two layers of non-porous rocks.
• The oil is trapped in the anticline with gas above and water below.
Oil Prospecting and Drilling:
• Oil is normally trapped deep underground
• It has been known to leak up to form puddles on the surface. This was how people first discovered oil.
• Now, wells are drilled to pump this liquid fuel out of the ground and requires modern scientific equipment
• Once the drilling site has been selected, a derrick or drilling rig is set up.
• The derrick is a large steel structure that holds the drilling pipes and other equipment.
Oil Refining:
• Crude oil cannot be used in its raw state
• It has to be processed and refined into useful products
• Like Petrol for cars and airplanes
• Heating oil
• Kerosene
• Diesel oil for trucks and buses
• It is cheaper to import crude oil and refine it locally for domestic and industrial use than to import refined products.
Location of Oil Refineries
In or near the oil fields
• Attock Oil Refinery located on the Potwar Plateau at Morga
At the port of import
• Pakistan Refinery and
• National Refinery located in Karachi
These two refineries also refine crude oil drilled in the lower Sindh oil fields.
Factors determining location of refinery:
• Market or demand factor is important in location of oil refineries
• If oil refineries are located near the industrial and commercial urban centers with high population density, transportation and distribution of refined oil is convenient and cost effective.
• A substantial proportion of Pakistan's import bill is spent on petroleum products which is a great burden on Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves
Use of Oil
Uses of by – products
• Paraffin
• Wax
• Plastics
• Synthetic Rubber
• Detergents
• Insecticides
• Pharmaceutical Products
• Chemical Products
• Furnace Oil
Source of Power
• Thermal Electricity
• For Heating
As a Lubricant
As an indispensable motor fuel
Patrol
• Air Crafts
• Cars
Diesel
• Buses
• Rail engines
• Trucks
Transportation of Imported and Local Petroleum
Transport at sea:
• Imports from Saudi Arabia and UAE
• Pakistan's imported petroleum, both crude and refined, is transported by sea from oil producing countries, especially from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
• Imported through Oil Tankers
• It is transported in special ships called 'oil tankers'.
Keamari Port
• At Keamari (Karachi) Port or Port Qasim, the oil tanker is berthed at the designated oil pier.
• The pier is a platform with an oil handling system.
• Through the pier the ship is connected to the oil handling system.
• The oil products (crude or refined) are pumped from the oil tanker ship to the oil marketing companies/refineries storage tanks at Keamari and Korangi.
• The products may be further transported up country.
Transport on land
• On land oil is transported in 3 ways
o By pipeline
o By road tanker
o By rail tanker
• Transportation by road and rail tankers is relatively costly, time-consuming and inefficient as compared to transmission by pipelines.
• Movement of these products by road is not only dangerous for traffic but, because of their weight, it can also cause extreme degradation to the existing road surface and be a danger to human lives.
• Pipeline transporta¬tion is the most efficient, convenient and cheapest mode of transportation besides being far more environmentally friendly.
Crude oil:
• Crude oil is pumped through pipes from the oil tankers at the oil terminals on the coast to the refineries nearby.
• The Pak Arab Refinery Company (PARCO) is playing an important role in the inland transportation of crude oil from Karachi.
• A pipeline has been constructed from Karachi port to PARCO's mid-country refinery located at Mehmood Kot for transportation of crude oil.
• After refining the crude oil it is supplied to the up and mid-country.
Refined oil:
• The refined petroleum products are transported from Karachi up country by road and rail tankers to be supplied to petrol stations and other customers.
• Within Karachi, oil is transported through the pipelines to the storage tanks of the oil companies like PSO, Caltex, Shell etc.
• Consumers directly buy petroleum products from the respective petrol pumps of these companies.
PARCO's Projects for the Transportation of Oil:
• In 2002 PARCO launched a White Oil Pipeline Project (WOPP) which will carry refined oil from Karachi to the north.
• After conversion of PARCO's existing pipeline network for crude oil transportation, the White Oil Pipeline will be used for the transport of refined petroleum products to the central and northern regions of Pakistan.
• These areas account for almost 60% of the total petroleum consumption in the country.
• Bin Qasim Port will be the initiation point of the White Oil Pipeline Project, where the refined products will be unloaded from the ships into the pipeline for onward transportation to the country's northern and central regions.
• The new underground pipeline costing $ 480 million will also carry refined oil from the Pakistan Oil Refinery at Port Qasim to Mahmood Kot in district Muzaffargarh covering a distance of 817 km.
• The demand for petroleum products is rising at a rate of 10% per annum up country.
• The Project will also create employment opportuni¬ties in many areas of the country and will contribute to the economic welfare of the people and the country. This will have a stabilizing effect on all sectors of the country's economy.
Production of Oil:
• Pakistan is deficient in mineral oil resources.• According to some geologists favorable structural traps are found in large areas of Pakistan.
• Since 1947 many major discoveries were made in Punjab and Sindh and drilling activities were enhanced in the 1980s and 1990s.
• However, oil is still the major import item in Pakistan.
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