Primary Recovery
Categories: Econ
If there was a “green” way to extract oil out of the ground, it’d be the primary recovery method. Ironic, we know.
Primary recovery is step one of the gas production process, pulling those creaky, leaky dino-bones out of the deep Earth using good old-fashioned pressure.
Oil drillers create a hole at the bottom of the well, which is full of air...low pressure. The gas below is under intense pressure. When given the chance, the pressure will try to equalize, and the oil comes shooting out of its deep Earth living space, like a genie out of its bottle. It can shoot up and out, almost like a water geyser. This is why oil spills keep on...spilling. Poor birdies.
Anyway, this differentiated pressure is an old school way to extract gas, and is called primary recovery. There are other, newer techniques, like enhanced oil recovery, which use heating, chemicals, and gases. In a similar way, it’s all about leveraging pressure to get what we want: whale spouts of dino-bones.
