ответьте на вопросы по тексту. 1. What measuring system is used in the oil and gas industry?
2. What do “upstream sector”, “midstream sector” and “downstream sector” mean?
3. Is the oil and gas industry environment friendly?

The oil and gas industry employs hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Many teams have a mixture of nationalities so that English is often the language used, and is often specified for formal communications. Although most of the world has adopted an international measuring system and measures volume in litres, the oil industry often uses the US barrel as a measure even though most oil today is never contained in a barrel. The sector of the oil and gas industry from discovery and drilling to production and refining is known as the upstream sector. Initially, producing countries allowed trading countries (USA, Britain, and Holland) to exploit their oil as a raw material. But they needed to control their own resources commercially and they realized the advantages of processing their crude oil locally to increase the value of the product. They built their own refineries where the crude oil is separated into different forms and converted into different products. The production of oil and gas has become a major element in international relations and politics. A large part of the industry has developed, transporting oil and gas from the producing countries to consumers and this is sometimes referred to as the midstream sector. The processing of oil into different products is known as the downstream sector. The products include the different fuels required for cars, trucks, and airplanes, fuel for power stations and heating, the basic material or feedstock for plastics, fertilizers, pharmaceutical, and the asphalt that covers our roads. Oil and gas are finite resources and because of the increasing scarcity of oil and gas, concern for the environment, and concerns over security of supply, a huge effort is being made to develop alternative sustainable sources of energy, but the skills of the people working in the oil and gas industry across the world will ensure that oil and gas will be available to us for many years to come.