Учебник по НТП

догадка М. В. Ломоносова об образовании нефти в результате воздействия повышенной температуры на биогенное органическое вещество осадочных пород начала получать подтверждение в конце XIXначале XX веков при проведении экспериментальных химических и геологических исследований.

Минеральная теория. Первым высказал эту теорию в 1805 году А.Гумбольдт. Опыты учёных 1860-1870-ых годов по неорганическому синтезу углеводородов послужили отправной точкой для развития этой теории. Д. И. Менделеев, придерживавшийся до 1867 года представлений об органическом происхождении нефти, в 1877 году сформулировал известную гипотезу ее минерального происхождения, согласно которой нефть образуется на больших глубинах при высокой температуре вследствие взаимодействия воды с карбидами металлов. В первой половине XX века интерес к гипотезе минерального происхождения нефти в основном был потерян. С 1950 года снова начал возрастать интерес к минеральной гипотезе, причиной чего была, по-видимому, недостаточная ясность в ряде вопросов органической концепции, что и вызвало ее критику.

Наибольшую известность получили представления Н. А. Кудрявцева. Они заметно изменялись во времени, но сущность их заключаются в том, что нефть и газ образуются в глубинных зонах Земли из смеси H2COCO2 и CH4 и в результате реакций прямого синтеза углеводорода из CO и Н2: CO + 3H2 = CH4 + H2, а также полимеризация радикалов =CH, CH2, CH3. Геологические доказательства минеральной гипотезы - наличие следов метана и некоторых нефтяных углеводородов в глубинных кристаллических породах, в газах и магмах, извергающихся из вулканов, проявления нефти и газа по некоторым глубинным разломам и т. п. - являются косвенными и всегда допускают двойную трактовку.

Космическая теория. В 1892 году М. А. Соколовым была выдвинута гипотеза космического происхождения нефти. Суть ее сводится к тому же минеральному синтезу углеводородов из простых веществ, но на первоначальной, космической стадии формирования Земли. Предполагалось, что образовавшиеся углеводороды находились в газовой оболочке, а по мере остывания поглощались породами формировавшейся земной коры. Высвобождаясь затем из остывавших магматических пород, углеводороды поднимались в верхнюю часть земной коры, где образовывали скопления. В основе этой гипотезы были данные о наличии углерода и водорода в хвостах комет и углеводородов в метеоритах.

Внастоящее время преобладающая часть химиков, геохимиков

игеологов cчитает наиболее обоснованными представления об органическом генезисе нефти, хотя имеются ученые, которые до сих пор отдают предпочтение минеральной гипотезе ее образования.

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VII. Solving Translation Problems

Copy out the underlined sentences from the text below and define the principal part of the sentence and the number of clauses. Translate the sentences paying attention to the types of clauses. Translate the entire text into Russian.

What does octane rating mean?

Almost all cars use four-stroke gasoline engines. One of the strokes is the compression stroke, where the engine compresses a cylinder-full of air and gas into a much smaller volume before igniting it with a spark plug. The amount of compression is called the compression ratio of the engine. A typical engine might have a compression ratio of 8-to-1.

The octane rating of gasoline tells you how much the fuel can be compressed before it spontaneously ignites. When gas ignites by compression rather than because of the spark from the spark plug, it causes knocking in the engine. The technical name for this condition is «pre-ignition.» It sounds like marbles rattling around in a can, and it generally gets worse the harder you press on the accelerator pedal. Knocking can indeed damage an engine because what is in effect happening is the «explosion» of the fuel/air mixture is trying to push the piston downward in the cylinder before it’s gotten to the top of its stroke and is free to move downward. The engine is actually working against itself to a degree, and there is a lot of mechanical stress placed on certain engine parts, such as the pistons. In extreme cases, knocking can burn holes in the pistons and create other forms of engine damage.

The AKI (anti-knock index - also known as «octane rating») of the fuel is an average of two different methods of computing the fuel’s ability to resist engine knock Lower-octane gas (like «regular» 87-octane gasoline) can handle the least amount of compression before igniting. Regular and premium gasolines are distinguished by those numbers printed on the pumps. Normally they would read 87, 89, and 92, but if you are traveling in the Rockies, you see those numbers go down to 85, 87, and 91 (or 86, 88, and 91) respectively. Most gas stations offer three octane grades: regular (usually 87 octane (RON-92)), mid-grade (usually 89 octane (RON-95) and premium (usually 92 or 93 (RON-98). The higher the number, the more anti-knock protection the fuel offers.

The compression ratio of your engine determines the octane rating of the gas you must use in the car. One way to increase the horsepower of an engine of a given displacement is to increase its compression ratio. So a «high-performance engine» has a higher compression ratio and requires higher-octane fuel. The advantage of a high compression ratio is that it gives your engine a higher horsepower rating for a given

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engine weight - that is what makes the engine «high performance.» The disadvantage is that the gasoline for your engine costs more.

Contrary to common sense, gasoline with a lower octane rating actually burns faster. In most car engines, power is produced by the pistons moving up and down in those cylinders - and the pistons get their motion from burning gasoline. Ideally, you want the piston to move as far up as possible before the gasoline burns, so that the burn will push the piston down and create the needed power. If the gasoline’s octane rating is too low, the gasoline will start burning while the piston is still moving up - stressing the piston and other metal parts in the engine, and wasting power. Too high an octane rating, and the gasoline may burn too late - if at all.

The name «octane» comes from the following fact: When you take crude oil and «crack» it in a refinery, you end up getting hydrocarbon chains of different lengths. These different chain lengths can then be separated from each other and blended to form different fuels. For example, you may have heard of methane, propane and butane. All three of them are hydrocarbons. Methane has just a single carbon atom. Propane has three carbon atoms chained together. Butane has four carbon atoms chained together. Pentane has five, hexane has six, heptane has seven and octane has eight carbons chained together.

It turns out that heptane handles compression very poorly. Compress it just a little and it ignites spontaneously. Octane handles compression very well -- you can compress it a lot and nothing happens. Eighty- seven-octane gasoline is gasoline that contains 87-percent octane and 13-percent heptane (or some other combination of fuels that has the same performance of the 87/13 combination of octane/heptane). It spontaneously ignites at a given compression level, and can only be used in engines that do not exceed that compression ratio.

A fuel with a higher AKI actually burns more slowly than fuel with a lower AKI. This is because the fuel is less volatile and requires more heat input before it begins to ignite. (For this same reason, high AKI fuels will actually make your car harder to start on a very cold day. In extreme cold - below 0°F - you want a more volatile fuel which ignites easily so you can get the engine going without extensive cranking. So if extreme cold is expected, buy 87 AKI gas unless your owner’s manual advises against it.)

Did you know that the abbreviation for a barrel of oil,

“bbl”, actually stands for “blue barrel”? Barrels especially made for transporting oil were originally painted blue to assure buyers that these were 42-gallon barrels, instead of the 40gallon barrels used by some other industries.

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VIII. Mastering English Grammar

Translate the sentences into Russian paying special attention to the equivalent-lacking grammatical structures:

1. Four years later, the first oil well was drilled on the banks of the river Ukhta, while 1876 saw the start of commercial production on the Cheleken peninsula in present-day Turkmenistan.

2.The rapid development of oil production was accompanied by the construction of various plants for processing crude oil, with a lubricants plant opening in 1879 near Yaroslavl and a similar facility opening the same year in Nizhny Novgorod.

3.Securing control over oil production in Baku was a centrepiece of German strategy during the war, and for a time the Soviet Union found itself cut off from access to its oil.

4.Moscow was keen to maximize hard currency earnings from oil exports, and priced aggressively in order to boost its market share. By the early 1960s, the Soviet Union had replaced Venezuela as the second largest oil producer in the world.

5.Production from the Volga Urals region peaked at close to 4.5 million b/d in 1975 but later dropped back to less than a third of that level.

6.The early years of the 1960s saw a series of discoveries in the region, culminating with the discovery of the super-giant Samotlor field in

1965, home to recoverable reserves estimated at some 14 billion barrels. 7. By the middle of the 1970s, West Siberian production was filling

the gap being left by the decline in Volga Urals output.

8.The problems soon began to manifest themselves in the form of falling well productivity, low reservoir pressure and rising water cut.

9.The slide was aided by the economic crisis which engulfed the region in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

10. Russian oil production finally halted its slide in 1997. An independent analysis suggests that Western Siberia could still harbor over 150 billion barrels of reserves, three times the volume produced to date.

If all the passenger vehicles in the United States were lined up bumper to bumper, they would reach from the earth to the moon and back!

The amount of fuel consumed in these vehicles each year is enough to fill a swimming pool as big as a football field that is 40 miles deep!

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IX. Fostering Critical Thinking Skills

Read the text. Find additional material to expand the topic and write a commented essay in Russian on Oil in Russia.

History of oil in Russia

Although commercial oil production only began in the second half of the nineteenth century, for centuries oil was gathered by peoples who lived in parts of the world where it seeped to the surface. In Russia, the first written mention of the gathering of oil appeared in the sixteenth century. Travelers described how tribes living along the banks of the river Ukhta in the far northern Timan Pechora region gathered oil from the surface of the river and used it as a medicine and a lubricant. Oil gathered

from the Ukhta river was delivered to Moscow for the first time in 1597. In 1702, Tsar Peter the First ordered the setting up of Russia’s

first regular newspaper, Vedomosti. The paper’s first issue carried a story about the discovery of oil on the surface of the river Sok in central Russia, while later issues carried similar stories about oil seeps elsewhere in Russia. In 1745, Feodor Pryadunov received permission to begin gathering oil seeping from the bed of the river Ukhta. Pryadunov also built a primitive refinery, delivering some of the products to Moscow and St Petersburg.

Oil seeps had also been reported in the North Caucasus by various travelers passing through the region. Local people even gathered the oil using buckets to haul it up from wells up to one and a half metres deep. In 1823, the Dubinin brothers opened a refinery in Mozdok to process oil gathered from the nearby Voznesensk oilfield.

Oil and gas seeps were recorded in Baku on the Western shores of the Caspian Sea by an Arab traveler and historian as early as the tenth century. Marco Polo later wrote how people in Baku used oil for medicinal purposes and to administer blessings. By the fourteenth century, oil gathered in Baku was already being exported to other countries of the Middle East. The first oil well in the world was drilled at Bibi-Aybat near Baku in 1846, more than a decade before the drilling of the first well in the US. This event marked the birth of the modern-day oil industry.

The birth of the industry

The Baku region harbored many large fields which were very relatively easy to exploit, but transporting the oil to market was difficult and expensive. The Nobel brothers and the Rothschild family played a major role in the development of the oil industry in Baku, which was at that time part of the Russian Empire. The industry grew rapidly, and by the turn of the century Russia accounted for over 30% of world oil

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production. Shell Transport & Trading, which later became part of Royal Dutch/Shell, began life by ferrying oil produced by the Rothschilds to Western Europe.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Russia also began to discover oil fields in other parts of the country. In 1864, a well drilled in Krasnodar Krai produced the first gusher. Four years later, the first oil well was drilled on the banks of the river Ukhta, while 1876 saw the start of commercial production on the Cheleken peninsula in present-day Turkmenistan. The rapid development of oil production was accompanied by the construction of various plants for processing crude oil, with a lubricants plant opening in 1879 near Yaroslavl and a similar facility opening the same year in Nizhny Novgorod.

Oil production suffered as a result of the Russian revolution in 1917, and the situation worsened with nationalization of the oil fields by the Communists in 1920. The Nobels sold a significant part of their Russian holdings to Standard Oil of New Jersey, which was later to become Exxon. Standard Oil protested the decision to nationalize the oil fields and refused to cooperate with the new Soviet government. But other companies, including Vacuum and Standard Oil of New York, which was later to become Mobil, invested in Russia. The continued inflow of Western funds helped Russian oil production to recover, and by 1923 oil exports had climbed back to their pre-revolutionary levels.

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The rise of the soviet oil industry

The Caspian and North Caucasus remained the center of the Soviet oil industry until the Second World War, with rising production feeding the country’s rapid drive to industrialize. Securing control over oil production in Baku was a centrepiece of German strategy during the war, and for a time the Soviet Union found itself cut off from access to its oil. Caspian oil production once again began to pick up after the end of the war, and reached a new record high of some 850,000 b/d in 1951. Baku remained the centre of the industry and nearly two-thirds of Soviet oil field equipment was manufactured in the area.

But at the same time, Soviet planners began to accelerate development of the Volga-Urals region, which had been under development since the 1930s. Fields in the region were often close to existing transportation infrastructure, and the geology was not particularly complex. By 1950, the new fields accounted for 45% of Soviet oil production. The massive investments in the region paid off, allowing for a big hike in Soviet oil production. The extra barrels went to feed a wave of new refineries which were brought on stream in the period between the 1930s and the 1950s. The Omsk refinery was opened in 1955, and later grew to become one of the largest refineries in the world.

The growth in production also allowed the Soviet Union to begin ramping up exports of oil. Moscow was keen to maximize hard currency earnings from oil exports, and priced aggressively in order to boost its market share. By the early 1960s, the Soviet Union had replaced Venezuela as the second largest oil producer in the world. The arrival of lots of cheap Soviet barrels on the market forced many Western oil companies to cut their posted prices for Middle Eastern oil, thus reducing royalty revenues for governments of the Middle East. This reduction in revenues was one of the driving forces behind the formation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Production from the Volga Urals region peaked at close to 4.5 million b/d in 1975 but later dropped back to less than a third of that level. Just as the Soviet Union was thinking about how it could sustain production from maturing fields in the Volga Urals, the first major discoveries in Western Siberia were announced. The early years of the 1960s saw a series of discoveries in the region, culminating with the discovery of the super-giant Samotlor field in 1965, home to recoverable reserves estimated at some 14 billion barrels.

The West Siberian basin presents a hostile environment in which to produce oil, with the territory ranging from permafrost around the Arctic circle to extensive peat bogs in the south. But in spite of the difficulties, the Soviet Union was able to ramp up production from the region at an astounding rate. Growth in West Siberian production underpinned an

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increase in total Soviet production from 7.6 million b/d in 1971 to 9.9 million b/d by 1975. By the middle of the 1970s, West Siberian production was filling the gap being left by the decline in Volga Urals output.

The decline of the soviet oil industry

But in achieving phenomenal production from fields in Western Siberia, the Soviet oil industry had also sown the seeds of its own decline. West Siberian fields were relatively cheap to develop and offered huge economies of scale, and Soviet planners gave priority to maximizing shortterm rather than long-term recovery. Production associations tended to overproduce existing fields to meet production quotas without regard for proper reservoir management practices, drilling too many wells and injecting too much water. There were also no incentives to improve efficiency and scant investment in new technology. The problems soon began to manifest themselves in the form of falling well productivity, low reservoir pressure and rising water cut.

By the middle of the 1970s, Moscow was already aware that a production decline was just around the corner. The first decline hit in 1977, caused by chronic under-investment in exploration in Western Siberia, but authorities managed to reverse the decline by boosting spending on drilling. The second fall happened in the period between 1982 and 1986. This time too, Moscow managed to head off a crisis by injecting more cash.

A “wildcat” is a well that is not drilled in a proven field.

A “roughneck” is a nickname for an oil rig worker

A “pig” is a scraping tool that is sent through a pipeline to clean it out. “Smart pigs” have sensors that can detect cracks or corrosion in the pipeline, helping to prevent leaks.

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In 1988, the Soviet Union hit a new record of some 11.4 million b/d. At this point, it was the largest producer in the world, with output significantly higher than in either the US or Saudi Arabia. But by that point, a sustained decline in production was inevitable - thanks to poor reservoir management techniques, the Soviet Union only managed to lift production marginally during the first part of the 1990s, despite a dramatic increase in capital expenditure. When it came, the collapse in production was as dramatic as the rise had been -- Russian production fell continuously for a decade and ended up at almost half its original level.

Future development

Russian oil production finally halted its slide in 1997. An independent analysis suggests that Western Siberia could still harbor over 150 billion barrels of reserves, three times the volume produced to date. But the picture is clouded by the poor condition of the reservoirs at fields already under development, and by the fact that West Siberian fields typically consist of a larger number of oil-bearing layers than fields in other regions, thus complicating recovery.

Other provinces also offer significant potential. The Timan-Pechora basin stretches from the Urals in the east to the Barents Sea in the north. The region suffers from a harsh climate, and a large part of the reserves are thought to consist of heavy oil. Nevertheless, remaining discovered reserves are estimated at around nine billion barrels, implying significant potential. East Siberia’s remaining reserves are put at three billion barrels, but undiscovered reserves could be several times larger. The region’s main drawback is its distance from markets and the lack of transport infrastructure. Reserves offshore Sakhalin island are also thought to be significant, but development to date has been held back by high costs.

X. Organizing Ideas

Make up a concept map on Oil and fill it with basic ideas, associated words and phrases you’ve learned in this unit.

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Unit II

Gas

I. Getting Started

Read the text “Natural gas”. Divide it into several key parts and compose 3-5 questions to the each part. Put your questions to class.

II. Working With Vocabulary

Place the words and phrases below into the “Word” column and complete the table:

Colourless, odourless gas; hydrocarbon; gas pipeline; pipeline network; by(-)product; the Earth crust; methanogens; landfill gas; gas transmission network; ammonia; nitrogen fertilizer; carbon deposit; seam; liquid propane gas; gas field; absorption; cryogenic process; contamination; impurity; British thermal unit; NIS countries.

III. Practising Translation Techniques

Make a written translation of the following text:

Natural gas

Natural gas is colourless, odourless gas comprising largely methane and small quantities of other hydrocarbons such ethane and propane.

It is an extremely convenient and versatile fuel which is easily extracted. It burns with very little pollution and is distributed through a pipeline network to the final point of use. Unlike other fossil fuels, however, natural gas is clean burning and emits lower levels of potentially harmful byproducts into the air. We require energy constantly, to heat our homes, cook our food, and generate our electricity. It is this need for energy that has elevated natural gas to such a level of importance in our society, and in our lives.

Natural gas is a combustible mixture of hydrocarbon gases. While natural gas is formed primarily of methane, it can also include ethane, propane, butane and pentane. The composition of natural gas can vary

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