One of the ways that scientists and researchers are able to keep track of oil deposits and oil drilling is to map oil production around the world. This is an essential practice to ensure that big oil users are aware of what their future sources are for oil. This practice of mapping is done is a variety of ways depending on what exactly the function of the process is. For example, if the goal is to track who are the biggest oil producers, when their supply of oil will peak or which country has the highest use of oil this type of mapping is very useful.

By using this system of mapping you would know that Saudi Arabia is the single largest oil supplier in the world. They have almost twenty five percent of the world's oil. They get it from eight major oil fields despite having eighty fields that they work. It would also show that there has not been a major oil discovery in this country since the 1970s. All of these are very important facts to know. If you were to map oil production in the United States it would tell a very slightly different story. Although the United States is the second biggest oil producing country it is the biggest oil consuming nation. America uses twelve times the oil that the Saudis do. They import from several countries to ensure a large enough supply to the entire country. Recent hurricanes damaged much of the drilling being done in the Gulf of Mexico. This affects the supply inside the country.

The ability to map oil production means that at a glance most of the information on a country's oil production and oil use is easily available. This type of information can be invaluable when it comes to projecting future usage, having an idea of who and were the oil will be refined and the finished products produced, and even how the products will be distributed. The most common terms used in oil mapping are thousand barrels daily, shortened to TBD, which describes oil usage and importing and, thousand million barrels, known as TMB, as the term used for what a particular country has in its reserves. With the oil situation worsening by the year, this is all essential information for agencies worldwide to be able to access, whether they are concerned about producing enough oil to meet needs, or trying to illustrate the urgency of developing alternative energy sources.