Oil and gas industry is the world’s largest sector in terms of dollars. Oil and gas industry includes hundreds of thousands of workers globally and generates hundreds of billions of dollars each year. This industry is so vital that it plays a crucial role in national GDP. Oil and gas are an organic substance and found in the earth’s crust. Crude oil and natural gas are created by the compression of remaining plants and animals in sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, limestone, and shale.

Sedimentary rock is itself a product of deposits of ancient oceans and other water bodies. As plants and animals start decaying, they start integrated into the form of foaming rock. The natural materials turn into oil and gas eventually after being exposed at a specific temperature and pressure in the earth’s crust.

What are the different sectors of the oil and gas industry?

They have three key areas: Upstream, Midstream, and Downstream.

Upstream: Upstream is E&P Exploration and Production. It involves the search for underwater and underground natural gas fields for crude oil. Thee are the companies that find hydrocarbon reservoir, drill out, and gas well, extract these raw materials, then sell them to be refined by other companies.

Midstream: Midstream includes transportation, storage, and processing of oil and gas. After recovering resources, it has to be transported to a refinery, which is often in a completely different geographic region from oil and gas reserves. Transportation includes everything from the tanker ships to pipelines.

Downstream: Downstream refers to filtering all the raw materials. It means refining and purifying the crude oil and natural gas. This phase makes the product ready to deliver the customer or to the end-user. It includes several forms like Petrol, Diesel, natural gas, gasoline, asphalt, jet fuel, lubricants, kerosene, LPG(Liquified Petroleum Gas), and as well as some petrochemicals.

What is the most extensive volume of products?

The most extensive volume of product in the oil and gas industry is gasoline(petroleum) and fuel oil. Petroleum is the primary material for the multitude of chemical products, including fertilizers, solvents, pharmaceuticals, and plastics. Therefore it is integral to many industries as the foundation.

Who has the most oil in the world?

Top 15 companies that have the largest oil reserves
Rank       Country                            Reserves (millions of barrels), 2017 US EIA
1              Venezuela                                                  300,878
2              Saudi Arabia                                             266,455
3              Canada                                                       169,709
4              Iran                                                             158,400
5              Iraq                                                             142,503
6              Kuwait                                                        101,500
7              United Arab Emirates                              97,800
8              Russia                                                          80,000
9              Libya                                                            48,363
10            The United States                                     39,230
11             Nigeria                                                        37,062
12            Kazakhstan                                                 30,000
13            China                                                            25,620
14            Qatar                                                            25,244
15            Brazil                                                            12,999