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Helium is a chemical element; it has symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is the lowest among all the elements, and it does not have a melting point at standard pressures. It is the second-lightest and second most abundant element in the observable universe, after hydrogen. It is present at about 24% of the total elemental mass, which is more than 12 times the mass of all the heavier elements combined. Its abundance is similar to this in both the Sun and Jupiter, because of the very high nuclear binding energy of helium-4, with respect to the next three elements after helium. This helium-4 binding energy also accounts for why it is a product of both nuclear fusion and radioactive decay. The most common isotope of helium in the universe is helium-4, the vast majority of which was formed during the Big Bang. Large amounts of new helium are created by nuclear fusion of hydrogen in stars.
Neon is a chemical element; it has symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is the second noble gas in the periodic table. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with approximately two-thirds the density of air.
Natural gas is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane (97%) in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and helium are also usually present. Methane is colorless and odorless, and the second largest greenhouse gas contributor to global climate change after carbon dioxide. Because natural gas is odorless, odorizers such as mercaptan are commonly added to it for safety so that leaks can be readily detected.
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil.
Trimix is a breathing gas consisting of oxygen, helium and nitrogen and is used in deep commercial diving, during the deep phase of dives carried out using technical diving techniques, and in advanced recreational diving.
A breathing gas is a mixture of gaseous chemical elements and compounds used for respiration. Air is the most common and only natural breathing gas, but other mixtures of gases, or pure oxygen, are also used in breathing equipment and enclosed habitats. Oxygen is the essential component for any breathing gas. Breathing gases for hyperbaric use have been developed to improve on the performance of ordinary air by reducing the risk of decompression sickness, reducing the duration of decompression, reducing nitrogen narcosis or allowing safer deep diving.
The Hubbert peak theory says that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve. It is one of the primary theories on peak oil.
Coalbed methane, coalbed gas, or coal seam gas (CSG) is a form of natural gas extracted from coal beds. In recent decades it has become an important source of energy in United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries.
The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation, and marketing of petroleum products. The largest volume products of the industry are fuel oil and gasoline (petrol). Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, synthetic fragrances, and plastics. The industry is usually divided into three major components: upstream, midstream, and downstream. Upstream regards exploration and extraction of crude oil, midstream encompasses transportation and storage of crude, and downstream concerns refining crude oil into various end products.
Repsol S.A. is a Spanish multinational energy and petrochemical company based in Madrid. It is engaged in worldwide upstream and downstream activities. In the 2022 Forbes Global 2000, Repsol was ranked as the 320th-largest public company in the world. As of 2022, it has 24,000 employees worldwide.
A drilling rig is an integrated system that drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill water wells, oil wells, or natural gas extraction wells, or they can be small enough to be moved manually by one person and such are called augers. Drilling rigs can sample subsurface mineral deposits, test rock, soil and groundwater physical properties, and also can be used to install sub-surface fabrications, such as underground utilities, instrumentation, tunnels or wells. Drilling rigs can be mobile equipment mounted on trucks, tracks or trailers, or more permanent land or marine-based structures. The term "rig" therefore generally refers to the complex equipment that is used to penetrate the surface of the Earth's crust.
Inert gas asphyxiation is a form of asphyxiation which results from breathing a physiologically inert gas in the absence of oxygen, or a low amount of oxygen, rather than atmospheric air. Examples of physiologically inert gases, which have caused accidental or deliberate death by this mechanism, are argon, helium, nitrogen and methane. The term "physiologically inert" is used to indicate a gas which has no toxic or anesthetic properties and does not act upon the heart or hemoglobin. Instead, the gas acts as a simple diluent to reduce the oxygen concentration in inspired gas and blood to dangerously low levels, thereby eventually depriving cells in the body of oxygen.
The National Helium Reserve, also known as the Federal Helium Reserve, is a strategic reserve of the United States, which once held over 1 billion cubic meters of helium gas. The helium is stored at the Cliffside Storage Facility about 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Amarillo, Texas, in a natural geologic gas storage formation, the Bush Dome reservoir. The reserve was established with the enactment of the Helium Act of 1925. The strategic supply provisioned the noble gas for airships, and in the 1950s became an important source of coolant during the Cold War and Space Race.
Polskie Górnictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo S.A., abbreviated to PGNiG, is a Polish state-controlled oil and gas company, headquartered in Warsaw, Poland. The company has branches and representative offices in Russia, Pakistan, Belarus and Ukraine and holds equity interests in some 30 subsidiaries, including providers of specialist geophysical, drilling and well services.
The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) is an Indian central public sector undertaking under the ownership of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. The company is headquartered in New Delhi. ONGC was founded on 14 August 1956 by the Government of India. It is the largest government-owned-oil and gas explorer and producer in the country and produces around 70 percent of India's domestic production of crude oil and around 84 percent of natural gas. In November 2010, the Government of India conferred the Maharatna status to ONGC.
Petroleum has been a major industry in the United States since shortly after the oil discovery in the Oil Creek area of Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859. The industry includes exploration, production, processing (refining), transportation, and marketing of natural gas and petroleum products. In 2018, the U.S. became the world's largest crude oil producer, producing 15% of global crude oil, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia. The leading oil-producing area in the United States in 2019 was Texas, followed by the offshore federal zone of the Gulf of Mexico, North Dakota and New Mexico. In 2020, the top five U.S. oil-producing states were Texas (43%), North Dakota (10.4%), New Mexico (9.2%), Oklahoma (4.1%), and Colorado (4.0%).
Shale gas in the United States is an available source of unconventional natural gas. Led by new applications of hydraulic fracturing technology and horizontal drilling, development of new sources of shale gas has offset declines in production from conventional gas reservoirs, and has led to major increases in reserves of U.S. natural gas. Largely due to shale gas discoveries, estimated reserves of natural gas in the United States in 2008 were 35% higher than in 2006.
Scuba gas planning is the aspect of dive planning and of gas management which deals with the calculation or estimation of the amounts and mixtures of gases to be used for a planned dive. It may assume that the dive profile, including decompression, is known, but the process may be iterative, involving changes to the dive profile as a consequence of the gas requirement calculation, or changes to the gas mixtures chosen. Use of calculated reserves based on planned dive profile and estimated gas consumption rates rather than an arbitrary pressure is sometimes referred to as rock bottom gas management. The purpose of gas planning is to ensure that for all reasonably foreseeable contingencies, the divers of a team have sufficient breathing gas to safely return to a place where more breathing gas is available. In almost all cases this will be the surface.
Helium production in the United States totaled 73 million cubic meters in 2014. The US was the world's largest helium producer, providing 40 percent of world supply. In addition, the US federal government sold 30 million cubic meters from storage. Other major helium producers were Algeria and Qatar.
Natural gas was the United States' largest source of energy production in 2016, representing 33 percent of all energy produced in the country. Natural gas has been the largest source of electrical generation in the United States since July 2015.
References
- ↑ Bettenhausen, Craig; Jansen, Kerri (24 March 2022). "Podcast: The helium shortage that wasn't supposed to be". cen.acs.org. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
- ↑ "Rarefied Air: Drilling for Helium in North America". JPT. 1 September 2021.
- ↑ Fresne, Patrick (2023-07-23). "When a Rush Begins: A Field Guide to the Helium Hopefuls of the United States". Gold and Revolution. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
- ↑ "Google and Netflix Buying up Massive Quantities of Helium". www.prnewswire.com (Press release).
- ↑ "First Look at GGE Helium Resource. How does it stack up?". Catalyst Hunter. 8 December 2021. Retrieved 28 April 2022.
- ↑ "Tanzania to start helium production in 2025". The Citizen. 5 April 2022. Retrieved 28 April 2022.
- ↑ "Maiden Potentially Company-making Pure-play Helium Well Jesse#1A Spudded" (PDF). 26 April 2022. Retrieved 28 April 2022.