Oil and Gas Essay | Writing for Academic IELTS PDF Download

This oil and gas essay is about the issue of going to remote and untouched places to find oil and gas. It is an advantages and disadvantages essay. 

Q. Demand for gas and oil is increasing and so finding new sources in remote and untouched areas is a necessity. Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

Hint:

• You need to make sure you give your opinion as you are asked whether you think there are more advantages than disadvantages. 
• One way to answer a question like this to make sure your essay structure fits your opinion by writing more about the side you support.
• There are more disadvantages so it has been organised as follows:
  • Body 1: Pros
  • Body 2: Cons
  • Body 3: Cons
• The structure therefore supports the opinion well i.e. more benefits than drawbacks.

Sample Answer

• As countries around the world continue to modernise and develop, there is more consumerism, industry, and transport and a corresponding need for more gas and oil. One option to meet this demand is to find it in otherwise untouched and remote places, such as the North Pole. However, I believe that doing this is not the right solution.
• There are benefits to such a strategy. This is firstly the fact that people wish to improve their living standards, particularly in developing countries, and fuels such as oil and gas allow this as they enable the heating of homes, the running of cars and planes, and the production of goods. All of these result in higher living standards, and thus we need to keep finding new sources since we will eventually run out. 
• However, despite this, there are major problems with exploiting untouched and remote locations. One issue is that we will end up potentially jeopardising what are beautiful landscapes. For instance, an area which countries would like to drill is the Antarctic, home to many glaciers and animals such as polar bears and penguins. Drilling here would harm the habitat, and in particular, any spillages would be disastrous to the environment.
• Not only this, due to health issues and global warming we should no longer be seeking to use such forms of energy. It is evident that the use of these fuels on a wide-scale has led to the pollution of many cities and the subsequent poor health of its citizens where car use is so high. Also, carbon dioxide is getting released into the atmosphere, and this may be endangering our very existence. Therefore, we should be aiming to utilise more eco-friendly options such as wind and sun for power and electricity for cars.
• To conclude, although there is an advantage of finding new places to get oil and gas, which is that we can sustain and improve our living standards, the negative impacts outweigh this as we will damage those environments, as well as continue to harm our health and the planet.