ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Petroleum play

Okay kiddo, so let's talk about petroleum play. You know how we use cars and other machines that run on gas, right? Well, petroleum is a type of oil that we use to make gas. And petroleum play is like a big game where people try to find spots in the ground where there might be a lot of petroleum.

Imagine we're playing hide and seek, and we're trying to find our friends who are hiding. We might look for clues like footprints or a noise they made. In petroleum play, people look for clues too, but they're looking for things like rocks or underground formations that might hold a lot of petroleum.

Once they think they've found a good spot, they might drill down into the ground to see if there really is a lot of petroleum there. If they find a lot, they can start pumping it out of the ground and using it to make gas and other things that we use every day.

So, basically, petroleum play is like a game of hide and seek, except instead of finding our friends, people are trying to find places where there might be a lot of petroleum so we can use it to power our cars and machines.