What are the advantages and disadvantages of crude oil exploration?

advantages-- you could find oil and supply some of the worlds need for energy. you could get very rich. disadvantages-- you could hit a dry hole and lose money the drilling and exploration and transporting has the potential to do enviromental damage some of the worlds undeveloped oil areas are fragile ecosystems and it is difficult to get permission to explore there.

The advantages are that if crude oil is found, and can economically be extracted, it satisfies our civilisation's demand for a ready and cheap supply of energy, particularly for transportation (plus other uses such as plastics and chemicals). There are alternatives but for the present they cost a lot more and time is required to build up the infrastructure to supply them and in some cases prove the technology. However crude oil is proving harder to find, at least in some parts of the world and it is a fossil fuel which contributes to global warming, the effects of which are hard to predict with certainty.

advantages-- you could find oil and supply some of the worlds need for energy. Disadvantages- duno

the advantage is that you might find some oil.... the disadvantage is that you might find some oil. someday you'll understand.

Crude oil - as the term implies needs to be refined - this is difficult, dangerous, costly and an environmental nightmare. That's the real problem with using oil. The US has Large oil reserves in Texas and Alaska - however our country would be much better served if we imported oil and saved our own precious natural resources for war and emergency instead of bleeding this country dry of everything. The same way we shouldn't be the number one food exporter and should be keeping our topsoil for a rainy day - or an unrainy day as it were. It is a limited resource. Gas prices have more to do with refining. That's the trick. Also in terms of 'exploration' any geologist can tell you where large oil deposits are likely to be. People want to dig down and tap into these large underground deposits - that means drilling down miles and poking a hole in the oil bubble - lots of junk kicked up by the drilling, leakage from the oil reservoir, etc. Environmentally it's messy. Is there any reason to do it here in the USA? nope. What we haven't already tapped will be destructive to find and the amount we'd hope to gain is less than - say if we all bought a quarter less gas next year. Also we aren't selling this oil to ourselves or saving it. This National resource that belongs to all of us is being sold by private companies to Foreign Countries. Does that make sense? It's treasonous. People are poisoning and robbing us to give resources to our enemies.

The question is about crude oil exploration... Drilling for oil increases our knowledge about the geology of our earth. As oil exploration becomes more and more challenging, we invent new ways to meet this challenge technologically. This increases our knowledge in nearly every major field of engineering and mechanics. The byproduct of this exploration is a cheap and reliable energy source. The down side is that we are no longer finding enough oil to meet the demands of the world. Fuel prices go up and up in order to counter the world demand on oil. Oil also has a bad reputation for being bad for the environment.

We'd get more oil; destroy the Earth!