INTRODUCTION. This book is intended for undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students who have a professional need for English in the petroleum industry

This book is intended for undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students who have a professional need for English in the petroleum industry. It is also of value to people either in, or training for posts as engineers or technicians in various fields of oil and gas industry. It is intended for students who already know how to handle the common English sentence pattern, who already have a fairly wide knowledge of English grammar, and also have access to standard dictionaries, and are familiar with much of the vocabulary of everyday use.

This book reading materials are aimed at students who need to learn how the English language patterns are used in scientific and technical writing related to petroleum industry to convey information and to develop logical arguments.

From the point of view of teaching English as a foreign language, this book is intended for a student at the low intermediate level.

Though the book does not aim at teaching the subject-matter of oil and gas industry and petroleum engineering, it is assumed that students already have some knowledge in the field. It's main purpose is to give the student an introduction to this particular vocational area and to show how language is used as a medium for the study of petroleum engineering science, and to give students a grounding in this particular set of communication skills in English and to help them to practice these skills in order to study the subject via English and to use it when they have learned it.

The book consists of five chapters covering different phases of the oil and gas industry production processes. Each of them is divided into two or three reading selections. Each chapter deals with one of the fundamental stages of oil production - from geological prospecting for oil and gas to oil and gas transportation. Thus, each chapter introduces much of the basic lexis of these subject areas.

All texts are from authentic sources, such as textbooks, magazines, books related to petroleum industry and published in the U.S.A. Both descriptive and explanatory texts have been included, none of them was simplified for learners of English.

Each chapter begins with a brief introduction to the chapter theme. The introduction is followed by two or three reading selections, each preceded by one or two pre-reading exercises that can be used to teach the important skills of guessing the meaning of words from context and to deal with different types of vocabulary (slang, idioms, figurative language). Reading selections are followed by a variety of comprehension and skill-building exercises as well as exercises designed to practice and develop important reading skills such as determining meaning from context, recognizing links within the text, separating facts from opinions, retrieving information and making inferences. Such exercises require students to develop both interpretitive and productive skills and provide an opportunity for the student to integrate his/her existing knowledge of petroleum engineering with his/her expanding knowledge of English.

Each reading is followed by Talk It Over exercise and comprehension questions that give the student the opportunity to use in a communicative situation both the vocabulary items and structural patterns that have occurred in the reading.

The textbook contains a short English-Ukrainian vocabulary of special terms for each Unit.

An audio-cassette is also available which contains the reading texts from all the chapters. It will help

students to develop both skills of listening and proper pronunciation. The tape-recordings were made by native speakers.

For the development of this textbook the author has reviewed and used the following sources:

1. Ball, Max W. " This Fascinating Oil Business", 1964.

2. Brooks, Anita " The Picture Book of Oil", 1965.

3. Buehr, Walter " Oil..., Today's Black Magic", 1957.

4. Floherty, John J. " Flowing Gold. The Romance of Oil", 1945.

5. Fundamentals of Petroleum, 3-d edition, 1986.

6. Glossary of Drilling Fluids and Associated Terms. API Bulletin, 1979.

7. Hall, Eugene J. " The Language of the Petroleum Industry in Englsh", 1976.

8. " Introduction to Oil and Gas Production". American Petroleum Industry, 1983.

9. Langenkamp, R.D. " Handbook of Oil Industry Terms and Phrases", 4-th edition, 1984.

10. " Modern Petroleum" A Basic Primer of the Industry, 1992.

11. Porter, Hollis P. " Petroleum Dictionary", 1930.

12. Russian and English Glossary of Oil and Gas Terms, Price Waterhouse, World Petroleum
Industry Group. 1994.

13. Walton, Paul T. " Wildcatting in Arabia and the Rockies", 1994.

14. Wegmann, Brenda " A Reading Skills Book". 3-d edition, 1996.

15. Whitehead, Harry " Glossary to the Offshore Oil and Gas Industries"

16. " Англо-Русский Словарь по газонефтепромысловому делу" Под ред. Е.Израилева, 1959.

17. Русско-английский нефтепромысловый словарь. Под редакцией Д. Столярова., 1982.