OIL AND GAS: UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM ACTIVITIES.

Oil and gas activities are commonly divided into three major components which are upstream, midstream and downstream activities. However, midstream activities are considerably as downstream activities also.

UPSTREAM ACTIVITIES. Upstream activities are a term used to refer the searching and production of crude oil and natural gas. This activity is also known as exploration and production ( E&P). Upstream activities involve the searching and production of crude oil and natural gas, drilling and transporting crude oil and natural gas to the surface to start the downstream activities. Searching of oil and gas is extremely high risk and expensive. Most explorations depend on the creativity of petroleum geologists and highly sophisticated technologies to detect the presence of oil and gas. Moreover, explorations can be done everywhere; from deep sea near the arctic to the desert in Texas, United States. If the explorations are successful, drilling will be done to extract oil and gas to the surface. The process is done by drilling rigs. Drillings may be deep, depending on the how deep are oil and gas found. The activity of drilling is done to allow the insertion of pipes into the Earth. Normally, after the drilling, oil can be extracted and transported to the processing plants on land. The extraction is done by oil platform and oil wells. In Texas, United States however, the usage of pump jacks are common. Extractions of crude oil and natural gas may reach hundreds of thousands of barrels. After the extraction, oil will be transported to a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels before being offloaded to the tankers. Transportation of crude oil and natural gas can be done by both tankers and pipelines lie on the sea bed.

DOWNSTREAM ACTIVITIES Downstream activities consist of the distillation process of crude oil to its products and distribution to such companies. Crude oil can be processed into wide varieties of products such as petrol, diesel, kerosene, jet fuels, gasoline, Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), motor oil and asphalt. The by-product, sulphur is useful too.

The process requires fractional distillation where crude oil is separated. Fractions at the top have lower boiling points compared to the bottom fractions. The lowest fractions will be separated into smaller, useful products as shown above. After the process, the products will be transported and distributed to the consumers and factories. Diesel oil and petrol will be sent to gas stations, jet oil will be sent to gas stations in airports and others will be sent to factories, to manufacture lubricants, synthetic rubber, plastics, fertilizers, antifreeze, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and more.