Gail, the water is about 1 1/2 miles deep, while the total depth of the well is about 5 miles deep. Water that deep has about 10,000 pound per square inch pressure, and divers can't work in it-any subsea work has to be done by robotics or submarines. Its going to be a real technological feat to complete the wells.

Gail,

Your booklet is a great way to get the word out and preach beyond the "choir." For that reason, I do think these small points of reference are important. My background is media, not geology, still I have no recollection of the 2006 coverage of Jack 2. Oil simply wasn't on my radar last year.

Editing possibilities:

JACK 2
Jack 2, an exceedingly [or similar adjective] deep oil field off the Louisiana coast, represents...

Jack 2, a deep and difficult to reach oil field off the Louisiana coast, represents...

The Jack 2 field, with a well 5 miles below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast, represents...

ALFA BANK
Russia's Alfa Bank is now warning that...

More to the point....

Jack 2, for which reliable production technology does not exist...

I changed the Alpha Bank reference the way you suggested.

I changed both the question and answer to the Jack 2 question (#8).

Let me know if you like this better.

Hi Gail,

Yes, that change to Jack 2 makes more sense to me. Will's suggestion - "Jack 2, for which reliable production technology does not exist..." - may be "more to the point" for some people, but I think the specificity that the Q&A now contains is more concrete for the general reader.

Another suggestion: Anytime you reference the past on a web site as you did in the second part of your question: "Newspaper articles last year seemed to say..." it's better to include the "when" -- "Newspaper articles in September 2006 seemed to say..." You can't guarantee when someone will read your brochure, thus "last year" doesn't provide a real-world time frame.

Most people writing on the web don't think to add dates to web sites or in PDF files. In the olden days of print media that annoying work was the job of editors and production staff. Moreover, each edition had a date in an obvious place (May 2007; Vol. 7, Issue 12) that could be referenced.

Given that PO discussion is ALL about time - what did they know and when did they know it and when will life as we know it all go to hell in a handbasket, I suggest being a nerd about dates whenever possible.

Many thanks for tolerating my picky comments.

Good point. I changed the reference to September 2006.