Another attempt!! - Moved

Question

I have another version for the text about china and the oil crisis.
could you just have a look please ?

This text deals with the china oil policy facing the iraqi crisis which occures nowadays.

China is the third oil consumer in the world after United states and Japan. However, china didn't have oil reserves and the iraqi conflict makes the oil price soar.

In order to overcome this war, peking has set up a storage tanks system with cave for a 90 days supply, which represent 1.5 billion euros.

Peking also invest abroad by purschasing more than 16% of a big oil deposit in Kazakhstan, in order to decrease his dependance on Middle-East.

Thanks to all these huge investments, china join the most important oil company of the world.

Carla · Accepted Answer

Hi Sam,
I would rewrite the piece like this:
China is adapting its oil policy as a result of the current Mid-East crisis.
Though it is the third largest oil consumer in the world after the United States and Japan, China has no oil reserves of its own. With the conflict in Iraq causing oil prices around the world to soar, Peking has responded by setting up a system of storage tanks with a 90-day supply of oil. The represents an investment of 1.5 billion Euros. Peking is also investing abroad, and has recently purchased more than 16% of an oil deposit in Kazakhstan, in an attempt to decrease China's dependance on the Middle East.
Thanks to these wide-ranging moves, China has joined the most important oil company in the world.

Reasons: the first line is quite boring, better to leap in right away with a stronger statement.
You have to say it is the third "largest" consumer - third oil consumer just suggests that it was the third country ever to consume oil.
I wanted to avoid starting two sentences with China, so I consolidated those two sentences.
I am not sure what the "with cave" means, so I just dropped that, and rewrote that sentence to make it a bit clearer.
I would rethink that "more than 16%" - it's such a precise figure that readers would wonder why you don't just give the exact figure instead of "more than". I would either change it to "more than 15%", or find out the exact percentage.
"Big" is a rather lame adjective, rather like "nice" or "good", so I would either leave it out or change to something more dramatic, like "huge" or "enormous", or even better, find out exactly how large it is and just say that.
"in order to decrease 'his' dependance": if referring to Peking, it should be "its", if referring to the Chinese people it should be "their".
To avoid repeating 'investments' I changed it to 'moves'.
Not really sure what you mean by the last phrase. Do you mean "China has become one of the most important countries in the global oil market"? I think that's what you mean but it is not clear at all. It sounds like China has joined an oil company: what oil company? You haven't mentioned one elsewhere.

Hope you find this helpful!
Carla

Sam · Answer

thanks a lot for your corrections!

I realise that my text wasn't very clear. I think that it's because I have made a literal translation from french.

my last phrase realy means that china is nowadays one of the most important oil company just like TotalFinaElf or Shell.

thanks again
sam

Shmooliette · Answer

Go Journalist Carla!!!!!!! Nice to see you on the site my dear!

Shmooliette · Answer

Bonjour Sam

I think Carla pretty much covered everything, so I'll just concentrate on a few specifics:

"storage tanks system with cave" - perhaps you could say a "cave storage tank system", meaning that they are storing oil underground in caves.

you could also write " Peking has set up a new 90 day ( cave) storage tank system, which represents 1.5 billion euros worth of oil. - this sentence is rather long though!

"Peking also invest...." _ Peking has also invested abroad, recently purchasing a significant stake of a large Kazakhstani oil depoist. This was acquired in the hope of decreased dependance on the Middle East.

"Thanks to...." - Thanks to these huge investments, China is fast becoming a major player in world oil.

See also " The Iraqi conflict has made oil prices soar" - using this tense because we wish to talk about a trend which began in the past and may well continue into the future

I hope that this is helpful Sam, bye for now

Juliette

Carla · Answer

Go English Teacher Jools!!!

Shmooliette · Answer

Look! Studying grammar at uni did have a use after all!  Present Perfect Continuous anyone, Noam Chomsky?????

Another attempt!! - Moved

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