The Lowdown on Oil for Dummies

drilling rig on the hunt for oil

It's been a while since the staff geologist came out of hiding to chastise people for their stupidity about the oil business. Perhaps that's because, with gasoline prices at ten-year lows, no one's been grumbling much about Big Oil. That doesn't mean, however, that there isn't plenty of stupidity to be had at internet content farms. For example, take a gander at the rubbish eHowian Frederick S. Blackmon published at the mother site in a post called "Interesting Facts on Oil."¹

We've seen Blackmon's name before: four times already, generally attached to posts about scientific topics (Fred's a fitness instructor who likes horror films...). He seems to think he's well-read on the petroleum industry, though much of his information is suspect. Whatever the case, Frederick definitely had some problems with his "interesting facts." For instance, he tells us that

"Crude oil comes from decomposed organic remains and must be pumped to the surface from deep recesses of the Earth's crust. These pockets of 'black gold' are located beneath the sea and in different countries all over the world ." "Oil is converted to gasoline and primarily used to fuel vehicles. Other petroleum products include medicine, perfume, carpets, paint, detergents and food preservatives." "Although the Exxon Valdez oil spill garnered a great deal of media coverage, it was not the largest oil spill in history. In 1991, eight storage facilities at the Sea Island installation in Kuwait spilled 240 million gallons of crude oil." "OPEC estimates that Saudi Arabia's Ghawar oil field contains about 85 billion barrels of oil... Saudi Arabia boasts the largest crude oil reserves in the world, with over 261, 444 millions of barrels. Iraq is a close second, with 112,000 millions of barrels in its crude oil reserves."

OK, Freddie, here's where you screwed up:

1. As for those "deep recesses of the Earth's crust" and "pockets"? Utter bull -- petroleum reservoirs are a) not "pockets" and b) often found near the surface instead of "deep" in the 35-mile thick crust.
2. Ummm, no, "medicine, perfume, carpets, paint, detergents and food preservatives" aren't petroleum products -- well, maybe the carpets -- petroleum products are used in their manufacture as feedstocks. 
3. One might think you'd mention the cause of that spill in Kuwait -- Iraqi soldiers dumped it during "Desert Storm"
4. Ummm, Fred, if one Saudi field has 85 billion barrels of reserves, how come Saudi Arabia only has "261, 444 millions of barrels [sic]" in total? And in what mathematics is 112 "a close second" to 261? It's less than half!

Blackmon's clear misunderstanding of the geology and chemistry of petroleum is exacerbated by his poor grasp of history and elementary arithmetic. How could we even think of not giving him another Dumbass of the Day award for this rubbish? He couldn't even copy the factoids from the blog where he found them!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/facts_5467691_interesting-oil.html

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