Unit III grammar : revision

Ex. 15

Read and translate the following sentences into Russian:

1. 
   All else being equal — especially product prices — a refiner makes more money from $15/bbl crude than from its dearer alternative.
   
2. 
   With the prices increasing, we are seeing solar, geothermal, biomass and ethanol become more competitive in the overall energy mix.
   
3. 
   The hydropower industry also is gaining ‘steam’, with the Canadian Hydropower Association estimating that water power already delivers two-thirds of the electricity generated.
   
4. 
   With current record-breaking oil and gas prices having been sustained for at least a year, producing companies around the world are driving exploration and development drilling to peak levels, particularly offshore and in difficult environments.
   
5. 
   With energy consumption expected to grow in the coming decades, the country needs access to its untapped domestic resources.
   
6. 
   Hurricane Katrina having struck the US oil industry in summer 2005, a lot of refinery capacity was down for maintenance.
   
7. 
   Gas storage in underground reservoirs being economically attractive; it is considered the most important type of storage.
   
8. 
   Nippon Oil first announced in May 2008 that it had agreed with China’s National Development and Reform Commission to turn the Osaka refinery into a joint venture operation, with Nippon Oil holding a 51% stake and CNPC the remaining stake.
   
9. 
   Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Development has teamed up with ConocoPhillips and state-owned KazMunaiGaz (KMG) to sign up for a joint exploration and development deal for the offshore Nursultan block. KMG as majority owner will hold a 51% interest in the block, with the remaining 49% shared equally between ConocoPhillips and Mubadala.
   

Ex. 16

Translate the sentences into Russian, paying attention to the active vocabulary of the unit:

1. 
   Computers can handle huge amounts of data.
   
2. 
   Three or four staff members handle incoming telephone calls.
   
3. 
   The ultimate responsibility for policy lies with the President.
   
4. 
   Since the first Federal Clean Air Law in 1955, U.S. citizens have increasingly desired a cleaner environment, and environmental protection laws have become increasingly strict. Various estimates have been made of the cost to the industry to comply with these regulations.
   
5. 
   Construction did not begin in 2006 and the refinery is unlikely to be on stream before 2009.
   
6. 
   Exploration in Russia’s West Siberian Basin Province has led to the discovery of several giant oil and gas fields, including Urengoy gas field with more than 3,500 tcf of estimated ultimate recovery.
   
7. 
   Costs should fall as new technology comes on-stream.
   
8. 
   Prices were relatively stable from 1918 to 1970, when large multinational oil companies controlled much of the oil flow.
   
9. 
   Cash flow is the balance of the amounts of cash being received and paid by a business during a defined period of time.
   
10. 
    Imports of petroleum products have grown at an annual rate of over 10% in the last decade, although still providing only 5% of U.S. gasoline consumption.
    
11. 
    If we continue to deplete the Earth's natural resources, we will cause serious damage to the environment.
    
12. 
    Contrary to the familiar industrial image of "boomtowns", the size of some cities has declined, despite a growth in world population. Cities shrink when economic investment moves elsewhere in the world.
    
13. 
    Stores are expecting a surge in demand as Christmas approaches.
    
14. 
    Air France has maintained a high level of service for many years.
    
15. 
    In spring 2006, an unusual amount of refinery capacity was down for maintenance that had been delayed because of the stresses placed on the industry by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the late summer and fall of 2005.
    
16. 
    Between 1990 and 2002, the number of different grades of gasoline increased from three to fourteen. This trend made refining more complex, requiring refineries to reconfigure their operations at lower production levels or invest money to sustain the same output.
    
17. 
    Investment in capital-intensive industries does not directly track changes in profits or prices. Analysis of historical data shows that annual investments in refinery capacity are more stable than profits.
    
18. 
    Some analysts have argued that refinery capacity should be substantially higher and that such increases would reduce gasoline prices to $1.50 per gallon. Given that refiners needed $1.95 per gallon to cover their costs in 2005, this theoretical combination of higher capacity and lower prices would not be sustainable.
    
19. 
    Given the number of people we invited, I'm surprised so few came.
    
20. 
    The high level of radiation in the rocks implies that they are volcanic in origin.
    
21. 
    It is necessary to make allowance for the time required by the sound to ascend from the bottom.
    
22. 
    One might expect the decline in inventories to increase gasoline price volatility. Yet, although gasoline price volatility has been generally trending up, current volatility levels are actually less than in the years 1979 – 1992, when inventories were higher. The volatility in those years is probably explained by the more volatile price of crude oil, which is the major determinant of gasoline prices.
    
23. 
    Real prices reached a historical low in 1998 during the Asian economic crisis and did not return to their historical average of $2.13 per gallon (in 2005 dollars) until 2005.
    
24. 
    The profits the companies earned from their domestic and foreign refining operations are roughly comparable. On average between 1977 and 2005, the companies earned a combined $4.7 billion annually from their overseas refining operations, about 10% less than from domestic operations.
    
25. 
    Regular maintenance is a sure way to minimize costly downtime.
    
26. 
    At low levels of capacity utilization, refineries lose some of their economies of scale (повышение эффективности от роста масштабов производства) and are likely to have higher costs. At levels of capacity utilization over 95%, costs may also increase because of process bottlenecks.
    
27. 
    A male 35-year-old smoker will pay 78 % more in life insurance premiums⁸ than his non-smoking counterpart.
    
28. 
    Russian foreign minister is the counterpart of British secretary of state.
    

Ex. 17

Read the text about gas storage in the US and do the assignments below

Text B

Natural Gas Storage in the US

Natural gas, like many other commodities, can be stored for an indefinite period of time in natural gas storage facilities for later consumption. Gas storage is principally used to meet seasonal load variations. Gas is injected into storage during periods of low demand and withdrawn from storage during periods of peak demand.

It is also used for a variety of secondary purposes, such as market speculation, insuring against any unforeseen accidents and reducing price volatility. Producers and marketers use gas storage as a speculative tool, storing gas when they believe that prices will increase in the future and then selling it when it does reach those levels. Gas storage can be used as an insurance that may affect either production or delivery of natural gas. These may include natural factors such as hurricanes, or malfunction of production or distribution systems. Gas storage ensures commodity liquidity at the market centers. This helps contain natural gas price volatility and uncertainty.

Gas storage in underground reservoirs being economically attractive; it is considered the most important type of storage. There are also other types of storage such as: LNG storage tanks and pipeline capacity which have both advantages and disadvantages over underground reservoirs.

Gas storage facilities in the US are operated by interstate pipline companies and independent storage operators. There are twenty-five interstate pipeline companies currently operating 172 underground natural gas storage facilities. They are subject to the jurisdiction of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Prior to 1994, these companies owned all the gas that flowed through their systems. This also included gas in their storage facility, over which they had complete control.

Then FERC Order 636 was implemented. This required the companies to operate their facilities, including gas storage on an open access basis. For gas storage, this meant that these companies could only reserve the capacity needed to maintain system integrity. The rest of the capacity would be available for leasing to third parties – producers, marketers and independent storage operators - on a nondiscriminatory basis.⁹

Open access has opened a wide variety of application for gas storage, particularly for marketers who can now exploit price arbitrage¹⁰ opportunities. Arbitrage is the process of buying a commodity or a currency in one place and selling them immediately in another place in order to make a profit from the difference in prices ?Any storage capacity would be priced at cost-based pricing¹¹, unless the provider can demonstrate to FERC that it lacks market power¹², in which case it may be allowed to price at market-based rates¹³ to gain market share. FERC defines market power as "..the ability of a seller profitably to maintain prices above competitive levels for a significant period of time.". The underlying pricing structure for storage has discouraged development in the gas storage sector, which has not seen many new storage facilities constructed, besides current ones being expanded. In 2005, FERC announced a new Order 678 targeted particularly at gas storage. This rule is intended to stimulate the development of new gas storage facility in the ultimate goal of reducing natural gas price volatility.

Commission Chairman Joseph T. Kelliher observed: “Since 1988, natural gas demand in the United States has risen 24 percent. Over the same period, gas storage capacity has increased only 1.4 percent. Construction of storage capacity lagging behind the demand for natural gas, we have seen record levels of price volatility. This suggests that current storage capacity is inadequate. Further, this year, what storage capacity exists may be full far earlier than in any previous year. According to some analysts, that raises the prospect that some domestic gas production may be shut-in. Our final rule should help reduce price volatility and expand storage capacity.”

It is expected that this new order will entice developers, especially independent storage operators, to develop new facilities in the near future.

(from Wikipedia)

1. 
   Say whether the following is true to the text:
   

1. 
   Gas storage is principally used for later consumption.
   
2. 
   Marketers use gas as a speculative tool.
   
3. 
   Gas as a commodity is liquid at market centers.
   
4. 
   Gas is stored in underground reservoirs because it is economically attractive.
   
5. 
   Before 1994 all the gas that flowed through the US pipelines belonged to twenty-five interstate companies.
   
6. 
   Prior to 2005 many new storage facilities were constructed and the current ones were expanded on the basis of the exsisting pricing structure.
   
7. 
   The ultimate goal of Order 678 is to stimulate the development of new gas storage facility.
   
8. 
   The Commission Chairman observed correlation between price volatilityon the one hand and natural gas demand/storage capacity ratio on the other hand.
   

B.Say if the following is:

Operating gas facilities on an open-access basis means offering off-stream capacities for leasing to third parties.

True False Not stated in the text

Ex. 18

Render the text into Russian

Балтийская трубопроводная система (БТС)

В марте 2006 года в порту Приморск состоялся пуск Балтийского магистрального трубопровода на проектную мощность в 65 млн. тонн нефти в год и открытие второго причала для загрузки танкерных судов. Это событие явилось знаменательным не только для Ленинградской области, но и в целом для России. Нефть и нефтепродукты занимают сегодня одно из ведущих мест в структуре мировой экономики. Реализация проекта Балтийской трубопроводной системы позволяет получить экономически эффективный экспортный маршрут для доставки нефти из Тимано–Печерского, Западно–Сибирского и Урало–Поволжского месторождений до главного центра нефтеторговли и переработки в Европе – Роттердама. Туда ежегодно доставляется свыше 300 млн. тонн грузов, 120 млн. из которых приходится на нефть и нефтепродукты. Технико-экономического обоснование проекта, проведенное немецкими, американскими и российскими специалистами, показало, что транспортировка нефти до Роттердама через Приморск является наиболее выгодной по сравнению с маршрутами через Вентспилс, Бутинге, Муугу и Порвоо. Например, затраты при доставке тонны нефти через Приморск на 3 – 5 долларов меньше, чем через Вентспилс. Прокладка трубопровода через Бутинге, Муугу и Порвоо увеличила бы эту разницу еще больше.


Общий объем экспорта российской нефти и нефтепродуктов с использованием всех видов транспорта составляет свыше 100 млн. тонн. При этом дефицит мощностей (shortfall) для транспортировки нефти и нефтепродуктов морским транспортом составляет около 40 млн. тонн. В итоге, после выхода на проектную мощность, Балтийская трубопроводная система позволит ликвидировать узкие места и существующий дефицит мощностей в транспортировке нефти. Предполагается, что доля нефтепродуктов в общем объеме морских перевозок на Балтике составит 41 процент.

При реализации проекта компания «Транснефть» применила лучшие мировые достижения и современное оборудование в области строительства трубопроводного транспорта для нефти. Балтийские трубопроводные системы – проект, отвечающий всем международным требованиям по технической и экологической безопасности. Это подтвердила проверка экспертов из Финляндии и стран Балтии.

Skills: WRITING SUMMARIES

Preparing a summary requires a special kind of writing. Unlike most types of writing a summary should not include any of your personal ideas. The only purpose of a summary is to condense what another author has written. This means reducing what the author has said to its main points.

Summarizing an Article

A good summary should present a clear, concise idea of the main points of an article to someone who has not read it. For example, at your future job you can be asked to summarize an article from Petroleum Economist or Oil and Gas Journal for your boss who is too busy to read it him/herself. In order to write an effective summary, you need to have a true understanding of the original article. This means taking time to read the article carefully to determine the author’s purpose, thesis and main supporting points.

Here, let us specify the term thesis. A thesis is the sentence or group of sentences which state what the main idea of a piece of writing.

How to Write a One-Paragraph Summary

Read the article once to determine the author’s purpose:

• 
  to inform the reader
  
• 
  to persuade the reader
  
• 
  to entertain the reader
  

Reread the article to determine the author’s thesis and take notes of the main points

Using the notes as a guide, write the first draft of your summary. It should include:

• 
  A topic sentence stating the name of the article, the author and the source. It should also include the main point (thesis) of the article
  
• 
  A body that focuses on explaining, in your own words, the main ideas presented in the article. An effective way to do this is by answering the questions what, where, when, who and why.
  
• 
  A final statement that summarizes any conclusions the author made.
  

Revise the draft summary. Check to see that you accurately summarized the author’s main ideas. If you have included any of the author’s minor points, eliminate them. Besides, be sure that you did not include any of your own thoughts or opinions about the topic.

Edit your summary to make sure that the grammar, spelling, punctuation and capitalization are correct.

Ex. 19

Read the story below and make a summary:

Text C

How Capitalism Saved the Whales

by James S. Robbins

Part I

It is the credo among environmentalists that the ills of the world can be traced to economic and technological development, especially since the industrial revolution. The changes that took place in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, such as harnessing new sources of energy (moving from water to coal power, for example), the development of the factory system, and the human population explosion, they say, led directly to the current problems with waste disposal, air and water pollution, overcrowding, and misused resources, not to mention global warming, ozone depletion, acid rain, and other highly possible developments.

Fixation on doomsaying¹⁴ can cause environmentalists to forget that the negative consequences of industrialization are minute compared to the positive developments of the industrial age. People are healthier, live longer, and are more productive than ever before in history. But defenders of industrialism can go even further to show that in many cases technological progress has benefited the environment. This is vividly demonstrated in the case of one of the most emotion-laden symbols of environmentalism, the whales.

At the dawn of the industrial age, whales were an important natural resource which humans had been exploiting for centuries. Whales were especially valued for their oil, which was used primarily as fuel for lamps. It was also used for heating, for lubrication, soap, paint and varnish manufacturing, and the processing of textiles and rope. The Japanese among others had long ago acquired a taste for whale meat. Regular whale oil ("train oil") was extracted from the fat which encased the whale's body. But the best oil was spermaceti, found only in the nose of the sperm whale (the cachalot) . It was used for smokeless candles, regarded as the finest quality candles ever made.

The sperm whale also sometimes produced ambergris, a sticky substance used in the manufacture of perfume. Baleen¹⁵, the bony, plankton-straining ribs in the mouths of most whales (excepting the sperm whale), was lightweight and had good tensile qualities. It was used for a variety of things, including corset stays, umbrella ribs, fishing rods, buggy whips¹⁶, carriage springs, and skirt hoops. Bones from the body were generally used as fertilizer.

Whaling was a major industry in the 19th century, and the United States was the pre-eminent whaling nation. According to tradition, American commercial whaling began in 1712 in New England. Whaling expanded through the 18th century, but was disrupted by the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. In 1815 came peace and rapid growth in the industry. By 1833 there were 392 American whaling vessels. By 1846 there were 735 whalers, comprising 80 percent of the whaling fleet of the entire world. Each year whaling produced 4-5 million gallons of sperm oil, 6-10 million gallons of train oil, and 1.6- 5.6 million pounds of bone. The price of train oil rose from 35 cents per gallon 9 cents per litre in 1825 to 95 cents 25 cents per litre in 1855.

Though large, whaling was not a strong industry. Even with rising prices, profit margins were always slim, and one in ten ships typically lost money on a voyage. In 1858, a very poor year, 64 percent failed to make a profit. But whalers could always count on an increasing demand for their products, as populations grew and markets expanded accordingly. Had the whaling industry matched the 300 percent population growth from 1850 to 1900, many species of whale would have been extinct long ago.

(to be continued)

from The Freeman, August 1992

1 Руководящий работник, руководитель

2 ржавый

3 the Mekong, a river in southeast Asia, which flows from Tibet through Cambodia and Laos to Vietnam.

4 Перепись населения

5 баррель нефтяного эквивалента, 6600 МДж

6 Пик добычи нефти

7 Обособленное причастие

8 страховая премия (сумма, выплачиваемая ежегодно или ежемесячно владельцем полиса страховой компании за покрытие убытков в случае наступления страхового случая

9 На единых условиях

10 арбитраж, арбитражные операции - одновременная покупка и продажа одного и того же финансового инструмента или товара на разных рынках с целью получить выгоду от разницы цен; а также все операции, позволяющие получать повышенный доход в силу неравновесия на рынке

11 цена на основе затрат [себестоимости] (цена, определенная только исходя из полных затрат на производство)

12 рыночная власть (наличие возможности у фирмы оказывать влияние на рыночную цену или увеличивать цены, не снижаю объемы продаж; антимонопольные законы призваны обеспечить существование ценовой конкуренции на рынке и устранение рыночной власти отдельных фирм)

13 рыночный подход (подход к оценке предприятия, пакета акций, актива и т. п., при котором стоимость оцениваемого объекта определяется путем сравнения данного объекта с аналогичными объектами, цена которых известна)

14 пессимизм

15 китовый ус

16 хлыст для экипажа

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