Products Resulting From HPHT Drilling: Asphalt
In the modern era where almost every facet of life is driven by energy, petroleum companies from around the world meet those energy needs through HPHT drilling. This drilling process yields crude oil and natural gas which is supplied to refineries and energy companies and sold customers. Typically, when the average person thinks of oil drilling, his first thought is the process which provides petrol for our cars and heating fuel for our homes. But crude oil produces literally hundreds of other products that most of us take for granted. One of those products is asphalt.
Asphalt is the black, sticky, tar-like substance used as a bonding agent primarily in road construction. It is mixed with aggregate substances like crushed stone or gravel and then run through paving machine to build roads. Asphalt has been used in road construction since the early part of the 20th century, but it's also been used in a wide variety of other applications such as mortar, adhesive, and roofing tar since ancient times. Also known as bitumen, asphalt occurs naturally in limited amounts. However, nearly 85% of all the asphalt used today is created through the refining process for crude oil.
In order to produce petrol and other combustible products, crude oil must go through an intense distillation process. The residue from distillation process is the basis for many things including asphalt. Residue is collected and then refined in its own process to produce the final asphalt product sold in the marketplace.
With this understanding, it becomes harder for us to simply say we should find alternative energy sources and stop depending on fossil fuels. Without the refining process needed to make petrol, there would be no residue from which we could create asphalt. And there isn't enough natural asphalt lying around to meet modern needs. If we were to continue refining crude oil for the purposes of creating asphalt and other materials, we'd still have the petrol left over at the end of the process. Do you see the conundrum?
The modern world depends on petroleum products to such a degree, that the average person in the industrialized world could scarcely look around his home and not find products that are somehow related to the drilling and refining of crude oil. If the world were to simply stop drilling for oil and find alternative energy sources, we would be surprised at the thousands of products we would suddenly be without. HPHT drilling, as dangerous and costly as it is, is largely responsible for the continued output of petroleum. Without oil companies willing to drill, our supply of crude oil would most certainly dry up and everything from asphalt to petroleum jelly would disappear.