Oil formation

Oil, natural gas and petroleum have been foremost on people’s minds for the past years. Nations and the world are run by oil. It fuels our cars, our homes and provides us with electricity. It is used in the making of plastics and cosmetics. Oil is also prevalent in our lives, but most people don’t know where the oil we use comes from.

Lead - in

Fill in the spidergram with the words associated with oil.

Explain your associations.

What does the word “petroleum” mean?

What do you think crude oil is?

What is natural gas?

What are hydrocarbons?

Terms and Vocabulary

сrude oil	сырая нефть
mixture	смесь
hydrocarbons	углеводороды
separation	разделение, разложение на части
refining	очистка, перегонка (нефти)
volatile	летучий, быстро испаряющийся
viscous	густой, вязкий
residue	остаток
reservoir rock	порода - коллектор
source rock	материнская порода
porous	пористый
porosity	пористость
permeable(impermeable)	проницаемый
permeability	проницаемость
cap rock sulfur nitrogen oxygen feedstock split up (v) be arranged tarry alter (v) sink (v) decay fine-grained exert (v) trap property shale source rock accumulate (v) limestone sandstone	покрывающая порода, покрышка залежи сера азот кислород исходный сырое разделять систематизированный смолистый изменить погружаться сгнивший мелкозернистый оказывать давление ловушка свойство сланец нефтематеринская порода накапливать; накоплять известняк песчаник

1. Read the words, remember the pronunciation.

[aı] modify, nitrogen, hydrocarbon, refining, microscopic

[e] residue, buried, dead, lenses, ethane

[eı] chain, available, able, locate, basin

[ə:] permeable, exert, refer, occur, preserve

[i:] methane, heat

[o:] source, porous, fault, salt, alter

[t∫ ] mixture, structure, manufacture, saturated

[ ∫ ] pressure, partially, depression, sufficiently, ocean

[k] chemical, unique

2. Read the texts, fulfill the exercises. What is Crude Oil?

Crude oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons with minor proportions of other chemicals such as compounds of sulphur, nitrogen and oxygen. To use the different parts of the mixture they must be separated from each other. This separation is called refining.

Crude oils from different parts of the world, or even from different depths in the same oilfield, contain different mixtures of hydrocarbons and other compounds. This is why they vary from light colored volatile liquids to thick, dark oils - so viscous that they are difficult to pump from the ground.