And since we can't, with current technology, extract even half of the available oil in a field, every gallon lost is immeasurably valuable. A typical well will produce oil, some natural gas and possibly some salt water, which must be discarded. A marginal well produces about 10, 42-gallon barrels a day. A good well produces about 50-150 barrels a day. Pumped oil is placed in storage tanks, and then either shipped via trucks or otherwise placed into a pipeline to be transported to a major refinery.
Much local oil ends up at a refinery in Cushing, Okla., where it is primarily turned into gasoline.
Everything from plastics to fuel can be made from the refined petroleum, although fuel and similar products are the most common usage. So, you can see that producers get very little return on a barrel of oil. At current prices, producers get about 30 cents a gallon for the crude oil they can acquire, he said. Governed by price fluctuations and overseas markets, the American petroleum industry has seen some hard times. But the industry's future is not set in stone, Picquet and Cress agree.