Corporate finance analyst Edesiri Onatejiroghene Ibru has worked with Midwestern Oil and Gas Company Limited since 2015. Prior to her current role, Edesiri Onatejiroghene Ibru worked with Deloitte & Touche Petroleum Services Group, which also supports the oil and gas industry. An integral activity for the sector is the extraction process. Below are some basic steps for oil and gas extraction.
1. Exploration: The first step involves discovering and locating potential oil and gas deposits in rock formations under the ground, onshore, or offshore. Models showing the earth’s geographical layers and the locations of oil and gas deposits are constructed. Exploratory wells are drilled to find the deposits.
2. Well development: Once economically recoverable deposits of oil and gas are located, one or more deep wells are constructed. Wells where no oil or gas deposits are found are abandoned.
3. Production: A mixture of crude oil, gas, water, and other hydrocarbons is extracted from the deep wells. This crude oil is subsequently processed to separate it into different petroleum products during the refinery phase. However, the processing of natural gas is either done at the extraction site or at a processing plant.
4. Site abandonment: When extraction of oil and petroleum becomes economically unviable, the wells are abandoned. The abandoned wells are plugged and dismantled safely to rehabilitate and clean the area.
