Finding Oil and Gas

Over the past 150 years, oil companies and prospectors have drilled more than two million wells around the world in hopes of striking oil. Many of the early wells turned out to be dry. We use sophisticated technologies and tried-and-true techniques to find oil and gas under the earth’s surface.

More recently, scientific techniques and new technologies have greatly improved the odds.

Before we put drill to soil or the seabed, we use typographical maps, aerial photography, sound waves, 3D projections and other tools to help us form an educated guess about the size, shape and consistency of the oil or natural gas that lies underneath.

Why are oil and natural gas so difficult to locate? The best way to answer this is to look at how oil and gas came into being in the first place.

In this section: 

> How oil and gas form

> The science of searching

> Drilling for oil and gas