“Energy is a critical part of boosting prosperity and eradicating poverty.” - Jim Yong Kim, President, World Bank Group
In a world of abundance, more than 3 billion people lack adequate electricity to meet basic human needs.
The Western world takes for granted easy access to electricity, transportation and clean water. But nearly half the world’s 7.4 billion people live with limited or no access to these advantages. Many of these people survive drinking filthy water. Many must cook food indoors over open, wood-fueled flames, the noxious fumes destroying their health and that of their families. The world’s most flexible fuels, oil and natural gas, could provide these poor people with a step change in living conditions. But in some cases, those who might help have their hands tied.
A drilling rig is a complex piece of machinery designed for a single purpose — to drill oil, gas or geothermal wells.
Meet the rigs and people who drill wells in the most hostile environments.
The modern drilling rig is a complex piece of machinery designed for a single purpose – to drill oil, gas or geothermal wells. From today’s drilling rigs, wells can be drilled to subterranean depths greater than twelve thousand meters. The pinpoint precision of modern drilling operations can also land a horizontal well more than eleven thousand meters long, within a target of only a few meters. Offshore drilling rigs can accomplish such feats in water depths of ten thousand feet or even deeper. These accomplishments have been compared to the space program.
Oil and gas provide two-thirds of the energy consumed in the USA.
What would a world without oil and gas look like? Dark, uncomfortable and polluted.
Global oil and gas consumption is expected to grow significantly in the coming decades, particularly in the developing world. These hydrocarbons are abundant, affordable and provide enormous quantities of energy per unit volume or per acre. Oil and gas energizes lives and are vital to economic and population growth. Hydrocarbons fuel transportation, as well as heating and cooling homes, businesses, hospitals and more. Further, these versatile hydrocarbons are also irreplaceable as a feedstock to create plastics and other materials used to manufacture the tools and toys we use everyday.
