What is meant by the phrase, "a commercial deposit of oil or gas"?

Question

What is meant by the phrase, "a commercial deposit of oil or gas"?

Answer 1

This means an oil company can Make a bunch of money without spending very much money.

Whoop pee, the consumer pays and pays.

Answer 2

A "commercial" deposit of oil or gas is one that is economically worthwhile to extract.  In other words, if someone finds a deposit of oil or gas that would cost more to extract (drill rigs, pipelines, etc.) than the revenue that could be generated from it, that is not a commercial deposit.  This could also be true even if the revenue were greater than the cost of extraction, but not significantly so.