07-15-2010, 11:23 PM
Grateful11 wrote:
Doesn't that mean that as we take oil out the seafloor should sink downward if that's what's causing these
extreme pressures.
There's an entire engineering field (reservoir engineering) that studies the properties of petroleum reservoirs, including their behaviour when fluids are withdrawn from (and pumped back into) them. The simplified answer is yes, in general the seafloor or land surface sinks when we withdraw large quantities of oil, often significantly. In many cases where this might be a problem water is pumped into the reservoir simultaneously with hydrocarbon withdrawal.