Interfering (part 2)

Interfering (part 1)

expositive text (part 2)

expositive text (part 2)

expositive text (part 1)

The Exotic Land of UAE

Grammar Tips: Prefixes & Suffixes

What are Prefixes and Suffixes?

Prefixes and suffixes are grammatical and lingual "affixes." Prefixes are affixed before and suffixes after a base word or word stem to add information. For example, with the word "prehistoric," the prefix is "pre-" meaning "before," the base word is "history" meaning "recorded events and knowledge", and the suffix is "-ic" meaning "relating to the science of."

In other words, "prefix" simply refers to an attachment before or in front of, in this case, a shorter word or stem. In lingual terms, a "stem" is the main part of a word to which prefixes and suffixes can be added and may not necessarily be a word itself, such as "dod" in "doddle."

Similarly, "suffix" refers to an attachment after the end of an existing word or stem, serving to form a new word or functioning as an inflectional ending, for example, “s” or “es” to make for plurality.

Is an Affix a Single Syllable?

No, a prefix or suffix can be one or more syllables, depending on the root word from Latin or Greek or from any one of a host of other English lingual influences.

some examples are: anti- de- dis- ex- mis- -ly pre- re- un- -ful -less -able -ness
-ise, -ize

Orinoco Oil Belt

   In addition to conventional oil, Venezuela has oil sands deposits similar in size to those of Canada, and approximately equal to the world's reserves of conventional oil. Venezuela's Orinoco tar sands are less viscous than Canada's Athabasca oil sands – meaning they can be produced by more conventional means – but they are buried too deep to be extracted by surface mining. Estimates of the recoverable reserves of the Orinoco Belt range from 100 billion barrels (16×109 m3) to 270 billion barrels (43×109 m3). In 2009, USGS updated this value to 513 billion barrels (8.16×1010 m3).

   According to the United States Geological Survey, the Orinoco Belt alone is estimated to contain 900–1,400 billion barrels (2.2×1011 m3) of heavy crude in proven and unproven deposits. Of this, the United States Geological Survey estimated that 380–652 billion barrels (1.037×1011 m3) could be technically recoverable, which would make Venezuela's total recoverable reserves (proven and unproven) among the largest in the world. The technology needed to recover ultra-heavy crude oil, such as in most of the Orinoco Belt, may be much more complex and expensive than that of Saudi Arabia's light oil industry.

Oil reserves in Venezuela

   The proven oil reserves in Venezuela are claimed to be the largest in the world, according to an announcement in early 2011 by President Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan government. The reported proven reserves reach 297 billion barrels (4.72×1010 m3), surpassing that of the previous long-term world leader, Saudi Arabia. OPEC said that Saudi Arabia's reserves stood at 265 billion barrels (4.21×1010 m3) in 2009.

   Venezuela's development of its oil reserves has been affected by political unrest in recent years. In late 2002 nearly half of the workers at the state oil company PDVSA went on strike, after which the company fired 18,000 of them. The crude oil that Venezuela has is very heavy by international standards, and as a result much of it must be processed by specialized domestic and international refineries. Venezuela continues to be one of the largest suppliers of oil to the United States, sending about 1.4 million barrels per day (220×103 m3/d) to the U.S. Venezuela is also a major oil refiner and the owner of the Citgo gasoline chain.

   In October 2007, the Venezuelan government said its proven oil reserves had risen to 100 billion barrels (16×109 m3). The energy and oil ministry said it had certified an additional 12.4 billion barrels (2.0×109 m3) of proven reserves in the country's Faja del Orinoco region. In February 2008, Venezuelan proven oil reserves were 172 billion barrels (27×109 m3).

   By 2009, Venezuela reported 211.17 billion barrels (3.3573×1010 m3) of conventional oil reserves, the largest of any country in South America. In 2008, it had net oil exports of 1.189 Mbbl/d (189,000 m3/d) to the United States. As a result of the lack of transparency in the country's accounting, Venezuela's true level of oil production is difficult to determine, but OPEC analysts estimate that it produced around 2.47 Mbbl/d (393,000 m3/d) of oil in 2009. This would give it 234 years of remaining production at current rates.

Grammar Tips: Conditionals

Conditional Sentence Type 1

 - It is possible and also very likely that the condition will be fulfilled.

Form: if + Simple Present, will-Future

Example: If I find her address, I’ll send her an invitation.

Conditional Sentence Type 2

-  It is possible but very unlikely, that the condition will be fulfilled.

Form: if + Simple Past, Conditional I (= would + Infinitive)

Example: If I found her address, I would send her an invitation.

Conditional Sentence Type 3

-  It is impossible that the condition will be fulfilled because it refers to the past.

Form: if + Past Perfect, Conditional II (= would + have + Past Participle)

Example: If I had found her address, I would have sent her an invitation.

For more information about this topic, please visit this link: http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/conditional-sentences/exceptions

                                     

What if the oil runs out ?

      If the oil supplies became exhausted, the effect on people lifestyles would be dramatic. To begin people would begin to panic and this would lead to them worrying about how they were going to feed themselves and their families, and also how they would get about, to and from work, from school etc. Without any power, looting would begin which would lead to a shortage of goods as there would be no way to transport these goods to stores. The oil would not be able to be used by the emergency services such as the police, fire trucks or the military. Obviously, production of any products made from petroleum would cease. This would affect plastic, polyester and fertilizers and pesticides. All airports would cease to be and there would be widespread death due to medical treatment not being administered in time. The country would eventually consist of small community pockets and people would be left to fend for themselves in many ways that they would not be used to. People would need to access fresh water and would also need to grow their own crops and produce their own livestock for food. Hunger would set in certain areas where the water supply was low, or the land was not fertile enough for mass production of agricultural products. Urban areas would become less and less populated, as people would seek the rural life to feed themselves. Money would no longer be in existence as the global economy, reliance on oil production, would have crashed and people would become dependent on a bartering system. Coal production and coal-powered factories would come back into existence and this would have a detrimental effect on the environment. Because of all of these factors, it is important for us to research and find new energy resources.

                                                   

Grammar Tips: Reported Speech or Indirect Speech

When we report someone’s words we can do it in two ways. We can use direct speech with quotation marks (“I work in a bank”), or we can use reported speech (He said he worked in a bank.)

In reported speech the tenses, word-order and pronouns may be different from those in the original sentence.

Present simple and present continuous tenses

Direct speech: “I travel a lot in my job” Reported speech: He said that he travelled a lot in his job. 

The present simple tense (I travel) usually changes to the past simple (he travelled) in reported speech. 

Direct speech: “Be quiet. The baby’s sleeping.” Reported speech: She told me to be quiet because the baby was sleeping. 

The present continuous usually changes to the past continuous.

Example: 

“I work in Italy” Reported speech: He told me that he works in Italy. 

It isn’t always necessary to change the tense. If something is still true now – he still works in Italy – we can use the present simple in the reported sentence.

Past simple and past continuous tenses 

Direct speech: “We lived in China for 5 years.” Reported speech: She told me they had lived in China for 5 years. 

The past simple tense (we lived) usually changes to the past perfect (they had lived) in reported speech. 

Direct speech: “I was walking down the road when I saw the accident.” Reported speech: He told me he’d been walking down the road when he’d seen the accident. 

The past continuous usually changes to the past perfect continuous.

Perfect tenses 

Direct speech: “They’ve always been very kind to me”. Reported speech: She said they’d always been very kind to her. 

The present perfect tense (have always been) usually changes to the past perfect tense (had always been). 

Direct speech: “They had already eaten when I arrived” Reported speech: He said they’d already eaten when he’d arrived. 

The past perfect tense does not change in reported speech.

                                                

a look into the past: Gulf Oil Spill (2010)

BP accused of gross negligence in oil spill

By

Agence France-Presse

The U.S. Justice Department has accused oil giant BP of "gross negligence and willful misconduct" in the massive 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, in court documents obtained Wednesday.

 

In its strongest language yet against BP, the Justice Department leveled the accusation in a 39-page document filed with a U.S. district court in Louisiana, in response to a proposed $7.8 billion settlement between the oil company and victims of the disaster.

 

It accused the British company of promoting a "culture of corporate recklessness," and accused it of giving the court a "misleading presentation" of the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon offshore platform.

 

"BP did not act alone, by any means, and its gross negligence and willful misconduct are inextricably joined with the acts and omissions of Transocean," it said, referring to the owner of the offshore rig.

 

But it said that, "The behavior, words, and actions of these BP executives would not be tolerated in a middling size company manufacturing dry goods for sale in a suburban mall."

 

An explosion on April 20, 2010 killed 11 workers and ultimately sank the rig, unleashing the biggest marine oil spill in the industry's history and what many consider the worst U.S. environmental disaster ever.

 

BP reached an agreement in April to settle claims from fishermen and others affected by the disaster for $7.8 billion, but it must be approved by a federal judge and does not affect claims brought by the government.

 

In its filing, the Justice Department said it was not giving an opinion one way or another on the proposed settlement, but used the opportunity to challenge BP's version of events.

 

"The court should ignore BP's one-sided argument that the natural resources of the Gulf are undergoing a robust recovery," it said.

 

"BP's cherry-picked assertions of robust recovery are at best premature judgments on the health of the overall Gulf ecosystem."

Grammar Tips: Relative Clauses

We use relative clauses to give additional information about something without starting another sentence. By combining sentences with a relative clause, your text becomes more fluent and you can avoid repeating certain words.

How to form relatives clauses

Imagine, a girl is talking to Tom. You want to know who she is and ask a friend whether he knows her. You could say:

A girl is talking to Tom. Do you know the girl?

That sounds rather complicated, doesn't it? It would be easier with a relative clause: you put both pieces of information into one sentence. Start with the most important thing  – you want to know who the girl is.

Do you know the girl …

As your friend cannot know which girl you are talking about, you need to put in the additional information  – the girl is talking to Tom. Use „the girl“ only in the first part of the sentence, in the second part replace it with the relative pronoun (for people, use the relative pronoun „who“). So the final sentence is:

Do you know the girl who is talking to Tom?

Defining relative

Defining relative clauses (also called identifying relative clauses or restrictive relative clauses) give detailed information defining a general term or expression. Defining relative clauses are not put in commas.

Imagine, Tom is in a room with five girls. One girl is talking to Tom and you ask somebody whether he knows this girl. Here the relative clause defines which of the five girls you mean.

Do you know the girl who is talking to Tom?

Defining relative clauses are often used in definitions.

A seaman is someone who works on a ship

Non-defining relative clauses

Non-defining relative clauses (also called non-identifying relative clauses or non-restrictive relative clauses) give additional information on something, but do not define it. Non-defining relative clauses are put in commas.

Imagine, Tom is in a room with only one girl. The two are talking to each other and you ask somebody whether he knows this girl. Here the relative clause is non-defining because in this situation it is obvious which girl you mean.

Do you know the girl, who is talking to Tom?

Note: In non-defining relative clauses, who/which may not be replaced with that.

OIL'S NEWS (RELATIVE CLAUSES)

Iran to approach big international oil firms for talks

Iran's new administration is set to invite international companies for talks as it looks to mitigate the effects of Western sanctions that have damaged the country's energy sector, a senior oil ministry official in charge of international affairs was reported as saying Monday.

"Given the establishment of the new government and the positions taken by the President [Hassan Rowhani], our approach towards the international arena has majorly changed," Mansour Moazami, caretaker deputy minister for international and commercial affairs, was quoted as saying by oil ministry news service Shana.

The moderate cleric Rowhani, who set up his cabinet August 15, was elected Iran's president in mid-June based on a promise of reviving Tehran's relations with the West, whose companies have abandoned Iran's oil and gas projects to avoid punitive measures under the international sanctions introduced against the country because of its controversial nuclear program.

Grammar Tips: Either and Neither

First things first: Either is always paired with or, and neither is always paired with nor. If you are matching either and nor, I hate to break it to you, but you’re doing it wrong.

Correct use for Either: Either is used when you are making a comparison between two ideas, and only one of the ideas will come to pass. Example: "either multinational or transnational may have the same meaning" the two options are correct, but both hace the same meaning, so you have to choose one.

Correct use for Neither: Neither indicates that the two ideas are linked together. It’s kind of like a negative conjunction. But if you use neither, then make sure your sentence does not have any other negatives preceding it. If you prefer to use a negative, then you want to use either. Example: "neither the fuels nor the oil business itself would be so successful without this companies."

Multinationals

Multinational corporations are business entities that operate in more than one country. The typical multinational corporation or MNC normally functions with a headquarters that is based in one country, while other facilities are based in locations in other countries. In some circles, a multinational corporation is referred to as a multinational enterprise or a transnational corporation, so either multinational or transnational may have the same meaning

The role played by multinational oil companies in the tremendous expansion of the world petroleum consumption and trade has been one of the great business successes of modern times. As oil replaced more expensive and less versatile fuels, the companies opened and serviced vast new markets for crude oil and petroleum products throughout the industrializing world. To fulfill the resulting rapidly growing demand, companies discovered and produced ever greater quantities of inexpensive crude oil in The Pacific, South America, The Middle East And Africa.

This Topic shows us the great importance of the multinational companies, neither the fuels nor the oil business itself would be so successful without this companies.

Introduction

Petroleum is the most important energy source of current society, it is worth mentioning that its importance has continued to grow since its first industrial applications in the mid-nineteenth century, and has been the cause or basis for various conflicts in some regions of the world, especially in the Middle East. Oil today is so important, because it is a non-renewable natural resource that contributes to the largest percentage of energy consumed in the world, its dependence, and instability which characterizes the international market and fluctuations in product prices, have led to investigation of alternative energy, but thus far no option has been achieved that can really replace it. Hence petroleum is and will remain, at least in the foreseeable future, the global economic base.