Abiotic Oil

In Recent debates on .Peak oil. participants are giving most emphasis on alternative sources of oil production. Though there are many ambitious proposal of using alternative sources of energy instead of crude oil, still efficiency of large scale production of those energies is beyond everyone.s reach. Costly instrumentation and lack of knowledge regarding storage of energies are also the reason behind less popularity of renewable sources. Hence the only option left is exploration of new oil reserves. This leads to the revival of age oil topic .Abiotic Oil. or the oil originate from inorganic sources.

The introduction of abiotic oil hypothesis was done by Alexander von Humboldt in early 19^th century. According to this theory oil is produced from huge amount of deposited carbon inside earth.s magma mantle. In later at 1951 renowned Russian geologist Nikita Alexendrovitch Kudryavtsav supported this theory in view of presence of oil in Tar Sands, Albarta during Canadian government.s oil expedition. Fundamentally this theory is more popular among Russian geologists than anyone else. In the beginning of this 2010, in Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden a group scientists under guidance of Vladimir Kutherov, demonstrated the production of methane and other hydrocarbons which are the basic component of petroleum using inorganic materials like iron oxide, calcium carbonate and water at huge amount of pressure and temperature similar to condition of earth.s mantle. In accordance with this experiment the scientist concluded that inside any kind of bedrock storage of hydrocarbon is quite possible. The only problem is difficulty in drilling through bedrock. In other word, the bedrock which starts from 7 Km depth from earth surface is almost impregnable. The temperature inside that layer is sufficiently high to melt the oil exploring pipeline.

Theory

The earth.s inner layer i.e. the magma layer is enriched with free carbons. Inside earth The main source of carbon is various carbonaceous rocks which actually present in molten stage. In nearly 200 Degree Celsius temperature and enormous pressure these pure carbon reacts with hydrogen to form methane and other alkenes containing the formula C_nH2_n+2 . This is a multistep reaction with various catalytic conditions.

1. Production of reduced carbon - Due to sea water.s time to time leakage the free carbons converted to Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide.

2. Production of free carbon - In this step both Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide are reduced to free carbon once again in presence of ironacious recks.

3. Production of Hydrogen - In presence of various iron oxides of different rocks like silicates, quartz or feldspar hydrogen is produced from water.

4. Production of hydrocarbon or Serpentinite mechanism - This mechanism was first proposed by Emmanuil B. Chekaliuk in 1967. Later it was demonstrated in laboratory by Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch. According to them, at higher pressure and temperature free carbon and hydrogen react together to form methane. Then in presence of heavy metals such as nickel, Cobalt or Iron this methane is further converted to various hydrocarbons (C_nH2_n+2).

Formation of Abiotic Oil.

In general presence of granite or silicates layers in mantle execute the role of catalyst. Besides this, entire absence of oxygen keeps these hydrocarbons from ignition and hence helps in formation of petroleum in just beneath of bedrocks.

Practical Examples of Abiotic Oil

At the end of 1970 the Russian government stated deep drilling procedure in search of abiotic oil. The 1^st of this kind oil exploration plant is Kola SG-3 whose depth is expected to be nearly 40,230 feet (~12 Km.). Though the initial target determined for this plant was 15 Km. At the bottom of the extraction pipe the temperature recorded is 190 degrees Celsius. The establishment of this plant was done based on different geographical measurements. At first an area of 15 Km stretched Pre-Cambrian continental section was selected. The reason behind this selection was the least depth of bedrock in this section would help in drilling. During drilling there are at least deviation was required for advancement. The success of Kola SG-3 inspired initiation of another 310 super-deep oil exploration plant under supervision of Yukos, Russia.s leading oil Company. AS a result Russia registered a 40% increment in daily oil production. In the year 1998 the average production was 5.9 mbp which reached at 8.6 mbp in year 2003 and recently at 2008 it was 9.7 mbp. This enormous rate pushes Russia to the world.s leading oil producing country putting Saudi Arabia at No. 2 position.

Next instance is White Tiger deep petroleum field of Vietnam. Situated in Boch Ho region of South China Sea basin White Tiger oil field is probably the only instance of granite rock based oil extraction plant. The depth of this plant is nearly 17,000 feet from earth surface. The total production rate of all wells of White Tiger plant is 180,000 bbp. Though in 2005-5007 there were significant decrease was observed in Boch Ho region oil plant, with the help of EIA several Vietnam government has already started some new projects for the restoration of those sites.

Availability of hydrocarbon in southern Syria seems to be another example of abiotic oil related substances. In an attempt to explore oil, workers discovered solid hydrocarbon bitumens having many chemical similarities with petroleum. According to the geologist this region is situated on a 1,100 meters deep deposit of alkaline basalt lavas which is supposed to be formed in advanced tertiary age. While drilling across the layer no bedrocks or any sedimentary layer were found. This supports the theory of hydrocarbon formation in abiotic environments. Similar kinds of instances are observed in the adjacent Dead Sea region. Incidents like sudden arrival of huge chunk of bitumens in sea water, extremely high alkali level in water all justifies the hypotheses. According to the local people after any kind of tremor the floating of bitumens in sea water is a very common view. This only interprets the formation of crack in sea level that allows the bitumens to come out from earth.s mantle.

Time to time recharging is a mysterious fact regarding abiotic oil fields. According to the supporters of this theory peak oil condition or furthermore permanent stopping of production like situations are impossible in case of abiotic oil plants. Once the oil is extracted from mantle the vacuum created by this will drew the oil from much lower highly pressurized oil storages in magma. As the magma layer is enormously vast so storage of oil would be limitless. The classic example of this type of phenomenon is Eugene Island Block 330 field. It is situated in Gulf of Maxico. Established on 1973 initially it used to produce 15,000 barrels of oil per day, later in 1989 it diminished to 4,000 barrels per day. But in few years it has again pushed the production to 13,000 barrels per day. Presently it is producing 400 million barrels of oils.

Conflict between Biotic and Abiotic Theory

Though there are some examples of abiotic oil.s presence, still world.s maximum geologist think production of petroleum in biotic basis is more reasonable that the other one. According to them there are some serious loopholes are present in abiotic theory,

· According to Plate Techtronic Hypothesis whole world is separated in some plates which are floating in magma. As the plates are not fixed in any certain place on magma it is not possible to obtain oil from creating hole through such plates. More precisely if the rate of movement of plate is different or opposite to the direction of flouting of magma then straight-line passage of hole and oil storage will wipe out.

· Next comes temperature issue. At earth.s mantle the temperature is somewhat nearly 247 - 300°C. In this high temperature the molecular orientation of hydrocarbon in petroleum will alter vastly. Probably the breakage of bond between hydrocarbons will only leave single carbons atoms as residue.

· According to biotic theory formation of oil is only possible in sedimentary rocks. Now in any instances after formation of petroleum inside such sedimentary rock if the rock goes inside of earth.s crest through any crack caused by volcanic eruption or earthquake, what would it be called? Biotic oil or abiotic oil?

· Another important argument is biomarker discovery in aboitic oil. Biomarkers are those bio elements that help in identification of the ancestral substances from where the object under examination actually came. In case of petroleum biomarkers are various carbonaceous compounds such as tarpines, cholines etc. All these compounds have chemical and structural similarities with chlorophylls, carotenoids, phycobilins etc. The interesting fact is that both types of oils biotic and abiotic contain similar kind of biomarkers. If abiotic oil is not at all derived from organic substances then how one can find biomarkers in abiotc oil.

· In view of massive high temperature it was a general idea that no living thing can survive inside earth.s crest. So formation of oil from bio substances is practically impossible. But recently microbiologists have identified various thermophilic anaerobic bacteria inside mantle. These anaerobic bacteria stay in mantle by metabolizing free carbons.

· Carbon generally consists of two isotopes ¹²C of 98.89% and ¹³C of 1.11%. Practically in our environment or in any naturally occurring carbon substances the ratio of ¹²C : ¹³C is always kept constant. In biotic oil there is also the same ratio maintained. Now in case abiotic samples collected from Russia, Vietnam or Syria experiments show similar pattern.

· Finally the failure of Siljan oil expedition. It is a lake of Sweden where expedition of oil stated in 1986. Siljan is placed in a circular crater created by a major collision of meteorite in earth surface almost 377 billion years ago. Due to the position of creator, abundance of abiotic oil was expected initially. Gravberg-1 was their first drilling plant which went to almost 6.96 Km deep inside the creator. As compensation as much as eight barrels of hydrocarbon mixed mud were discovered. But according to scientists the hydrocarbons were actually the petroleum which was used as lubricant during drilling operation. In a second attempt another hole was created in the nearby region of Gravberg-1. In this time merely 10-15 tons of crude oil ware extracted.

· In case of Eugene Island Block 330 field a counter explanation from Jean Laherrère once again indicate the accuracy of biotic concept. According to him the geographic positional advantages helped Eugene Island Block 330 field in reviving its production rate. Eugene Island Block 330 field is placed in Red Fault. Due to the presence of this fault the Eugene Island Block 330 field can directly access the sedimentary rock which are suppose to be the natural container of crude oil. Hence Eugene Island Block 330 field had the chance to refill its oil capacity during 80.s. But the problem will remain same as the amount of oil stored in sedimentary rock is fixed. Once the region reaches its peak condition the depletion in oil production will start automatically.

Finally it.s the time for value judgment of abotic oil related matters. There are several pros and cons are present in case of abiotic concept. As all these points at least have some practical backgrounds it is really impossible to totally accept or deny the presence of abiotic oil. Therefore rigorous debate on existence or utility of biotic and abiotic oil will lead to nothing at all. Other than that the abiotic concept has a psychological effect also. Existence of this theory will inspire human to try for the discovery of natural oil in anywhere of world. In view of recant peak oil condition in most of the oil producing regions and at the same time significant decrease in discovery of oil field explorations in current years has left no other option but trying for the extreme probabilities. Though our current technology is not totally full proof to handle such extreme conditions, continuous research will surely open new guideline for this. Till then our best policy should be . hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.