翻譯：THE OPEC oil cartel is about to turn 40, and the mood in the run-up to the grand heads-of-state party in Venezuela in less than three weeks time is jubilant. Not quite two years ago,oil was $10 a barrel and the cartel was on the brink of collapse. Now the oil price is well above $30 a barrel, and it shows little sign of coming down.

翻譯：crude petroleum is not an equilibrium mixture, and on a geological time scale its composition is slowly changing. S.R.silverman found that heating at 121C for two weeks caused detectable changes, the low-molecular-weight components formed being isotopically lighter so far as the carbon was concerned, than the original.

翻譯：Nearly three-fifths of all known petroleum reserves on Earth is to be found in the territory of the various Arabic-speaking countries. Kuwait , for instance , which is a small nation at the head of the Persian Gulf , with an area only three-fourths that of Massachusetts and a population of about half a million , posseses about one-fifth of all the known petroleum reserves in the world.

翻譯：For example ,the determination of the pump-setting depth and size of plunger that will lead to the maximum pumping rate in a particular well is a problem of considerable difficulty, which even today has not been fully or saris factorial solved; another interesting problem is that of gas anchors(bottom-hole separators); yet another is the interpretation of the results obtained form devices for determining the depth of the fluid level in the annulus during pumping.

翻譯：If Colonel Drake, Uncle Billy smith , Anthony Lucas , and the untold thousands of other members of the fraternity of drilling pioneers were alive today , they would no doubt be fascinated and amazed by the proliferation of drilling tools and techniques that have been developed since those primitive days in Pennsylvania and Texas . Undoubltly , they would also be impress by the great numbers of drilling rigs at work today-------over two thousand in the USA alone.

翻譯：A major oil company usually initiates the sequence of events that leads to the drilling of oil and gas wells in foreign fields, but independent oil operators pay for most of the wells in the United States. In fact, about 80% of all wells drilled in the U.S. today are financed by independents.

翻譯：There are two approaches to the problem of determining the fluid saturation within a reservoir rock. The direct approach is to measure, in the laboratory, the saturation of selected rock samples recovered from the parent formation. The indirect approach is to determine the fluid saturation by measuring some related physical property of the rock.

翻譯：The total quantity of petroleum now thought to exist on Earth is about 14 trillion gallons. In weight that is only one-ninth as much as the total existing quantity of coal and ,at the present moment, petroleum is being used up much more quickly. At the present rate of used, the worlds supply of petroleum may last for only thirty years or so.

翻譯：A third means of assessing the maturity of rocks is by the pyrolysis of a small amount of the source rock. The temperature is raised rapidly and the material vaporized or formed by thermal breakdown of the kerogen is passed through a detector which records, on a temperature base, peaks representing these two bursts of volatile material. To a first approximation the peak at the lower temperature represents oil already generated; the peak at the higher temperature indicates oil capable of being generated at adequate maturity.

翻譯：The HF-HCI mixture (usually 3-percent HF and 12-percent HCI) then is injected. The HF reacts with calys, sand, drilling mud, or cement filtrate to improve permeability near the well-bore.The HCI will not react and is present to keep the PH low, preventing precipitation of HF reaction products. Sent to keep the PH low, preventing precipitation of HF reaction products.