Real-Life Communication
You are an exploitation engineer helping to develop an oil well.
A new investor is interested in putting money into the oil and gas industry.
The problem is that he knows nothing about it. He sends you an e-mail asking
you to explain oil production.
You happily look over his questions,
write up some answers and send them back to him as soon as you can.
"It
is very important [to communicate well] because you deal with other disciplines
-- geologists, geophysicists [and] business and finance people," says Tayfun
Babadagli, a petroleum engineering professor. "Because the decisions are not
made only by petroleum engineers."
The investor wants to
know:
1. What matter formed crude oil?
2. What did bacteria
do?
3. What did increased pressure and heat from the weight of the
layers do to the organic matter?
Using the excerpt below, answer the
investor's questions:
Geologists generally agree that
crude oil was formed over millions of years from the remains of tiny aquatic
plants and animals. Petroleum owes its existence largely to one-celled marine
organisms.
As these organisms died, they sank to the seabed. Buried
with sand and mud, they formed an organic-rich layer that eventually turned
to sedimentary rock. The process repeated itself, one layer covering another.
Then,
over millions of years, the seas withdrew. In some cases, the deposits that
formed sedimentary rock didn't contain enough oxygen to completely decompose
the organic material.
Bacteria broke down the preserved residue into
substances rich in hydrogen and carbon. Increased pressure and heat from the
weight of the layers above slowly transformed them into crude oil and natural
gas.
(Excerpted with permission from: Chevron's website)
Questions: