They work, they invest, they put their heads to the task, they apply technology, and pretty soon they'll discover how to extract oil profitably from oil sand.
For all its concern for ethical business, human rights and development, the ugly truth is that Talisman is helping the government extract oil, and oil is paying for the war.
The oil companies, ConocoPhillips ( COP) and Chevron ( CVX), face increasing costs to extract oil and gas around the world, but abundant supplies, for now, that are likely to dampen prices and thus profits.
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Meanwhile, back in North America, new techniques were being developed to extract oil and natural gas from shale formations deep underground, from tar sands in Canada, and from deep water in the Gulf of Mexico.
Innovations like hydraulic fracturing, known as "fracking, " have made it easier to extract oil and especially natural gas from energy-rich geological formations such as the Niobrara shale, which stretches from Wyoming to beneath the densely-populated Front Range of Colorado's Rocky Mountains.
At first Amgen tried using genetic engineering to create organisms that would extract oil from shale, man-made proteins that would make chickens grow faster and new specialty chemicals such as a cloned indigo, a substitute for the natural dye used to color blue jeans.
The drilling technique, which uses sand, water and chemicals under high pressure to extract oil and natural gas from rock formations, has helped Eagle Ford oil production grow by 184% last year compared with 2011, according to the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the state's oil and gas exploration and production.
Bitumen, otherwise known as tar sand, is oil-soaked dirt that needs to be cooked to extract the oil.
That rock also had to be crushed, then transported to a plant where it was cooked to extract the oil and gas.
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Currently flavor and fragrance companies must extract the oil from peels to get those tastes and smells used in beverages and expensive perfumes.
It could redouble its efforts to extract heavy oil in Oman.
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So, what we're trying to do is come up with new technology that will allow us to extract more oil from the same area that we're extracting it now.
He added that Providence Resources would now have to go through "due process" in order to secure permits to extract the oil, which would include a period of public consultation.
Advanced technologies have made it possible to not just extract more oil from conventional sources previously thought tapped, but frack and deep-water drill in spots not even thought of 20 years ago.
Environmentalists complain the new regulations have too many loopholes, while the energy industry frets they will create more hoops to jump through before it can hire people to extract the oil or gas from the ground.
Lufkin, based in Lufkin, Texas, makes pumping equipment that helps drillers extract more oil out of older fields or ones that need to be pumped because the oil and gas underground is not under enough pressure to be forced to the surface naturally.
Fracking, of course, is the controversial method by which producers extract tight oil and gas a process that uses a concoction of water, sand and chemicals to break those deposits free from the rocks where they rest a mile beneath the ground.
The invention of new ways to extract gas and oil out or shale formations means we now have hundreds of years of supplies of low cost, clean burning natural gas.
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Agriculture remains a bigger part of the mix here than in most provincial Bulgarian towns because Kazanlak, and its surrounding plain of the same name, is the centre of a major industry in rose oil extract, feeding the needs of perfumiers from around the world.
The harder the oil is to extract, the bigger the rewards for the oil-service companies.
Lufkin manufactures pumps and lifts designed to help extract natural gas and oil from hard-to-reach reservoirs.
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Of course, the fly in the natural gas ointment is fracking, the hydraulic fracturing of underground rock to extract more gas and oil.
Instead it will generate steam to extract crude from a Chevron oil field.
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Close to home, that runs counter to the drive to extract every last drop of oil from under UK (or Scottish) waters.
Supposedly this method can extract 60% of the oil in a reservoir.
He also unveiled an ambitious, if implausible, plan to persuade the world to pay Ecuador not to extract a billion barrels of oil from the Amazon jungle.
For opponents of offshore drilling, Deepwater Horizon remains a rallying cry the perfect example of just how wrong things can go when we try to extract the vast reserves of oil that lie under the ocean.
And what price will France and Russia extract for letting Iraq export its oil again?
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