HOW Do We Know How Much Oil IF We Don't Drill?

ok, I've learned about shallow drilling to collect core samples, and using magnetometers to detect flowing oil and satellite images to examine surface rocks and terrain and detecting the smell of hydrocarbons using electronic sniffers, but don't you finally have to actually drill to see how much oil there is.


If you don't drill how can you kinow how much oil there is?HOW Do We Know How Much Oil IF We Don't Drill?
There are other technological ways that use sonar or magnetic waves to image underground. Drilling is a part of getting sensor equipment down there.HOW Do We Know How Much Oil IF We Don't Drill?
You don't really.





You use magnetics and gravity to find a basin to test then do seismic surveys. these still don't tell you much beside the possibility of oil. you can go ahead and prove the oil is there by drilling then extrapolate around the well you drilled using the seismic image to get a volume sorted out.





You don't know it's oil until you hit it.
Drilling exploratory wells is costly, both in terms of dollars in manpower and permits and litigation. Therefore other techniques are exploited in the pursuit of viable oil reserves. Geophysical methods are what I am most familiar with. Essentially the earth is shaken, either by a truck mounted vibrator or a controlled series of explosions set on sticks about 30 inches off the ground. A computer collects the seismic waves through devices called geophones and a geophysicist analyzes the recorded data. Its very interesting how the subsurface is made viewable, not unlike an ultrasound image of an unborn baby. Anywho, a very accurate estimation can be made as to how much oil is in a given region after thorough analysis.