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Petroleum (Latin Petroleum derived from Greek π?τρα (Latin petra) - rock +
?λαιον (Latin oleum) - oil) or crude oil is a naturally occurring liquid found
in formations in the Earth consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons
(mostly alkanes) of various lengths. The approximate length range is C5H12 to
C18H38. Any shorter hydrocarbons are considered natural gas or natural gas
liquids, while long-chain hydrocarbons are more viscous, and the longest chains
are paraffin wax. In its naturally occurring form, it may contain other
nonmetallic elements such as sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. It is usually black
or dark brown (although it may be yellowish or even greenish) but varies greatly
in appearance, depending on its composition. Crude oil may also be found in
semi-solid form mixed with sand, as in the Athabasca oil sands in Canada, where
it may be referred to as crude bitumen.
Petroleum is used mostly, by volume, for producing fuel oil and gasoline
(petrol), both important "primary energy" sources. 84% by volume of the
hydrocarbons present in petroleum is converted into energy-rich fuels
(petroleum-based fuels), including gasoline, diesel, jet, heating, and other
fuel oils, and liquefied petroleum gas.
Due to its high energy density, easy transportability and relative abundance, it
has become the world's most important source of energy since the mid-1950s.
Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including
pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics; the 16% not
used for energy production is converted into these other materials.
Petroleum is found in porous rock formations in the upper strata of some areas
of the Earth's crust. There is also petroleum in oil sands (tar sands). Known
reserves of petroleum are typically estimated at around 1.2 trillion barrels
without oil sands , or 3.74 trillion barrels with oil sands . However, oil
production from oil sands is currently severely limited. Consumption is
currently around 84 million barrels per day, or 3.6 trillion liters per year.
Because of reservoir engineering difficulties, recoverable oil reserves are
significantly less than total oil-in-place. At current consumption levels, and
assuming that oil will be consumed only from reservoirs, known reserves would be
gone around 2039, potentially leading to a global energy crisis. However, this
ignores any new discoveries, rapidly increasing consumption in China & India,
using oil sands, using synthetic petroleum, and other factors which may extend
or reduce this estimate.
Formation
Chemistry
Enlarge picture
Octane, a hydrocarbon found in petroleum, lines are single bonds, black spheres
are carbon, white spheres are hydrogen
The chemical structure of petroleum is composed of hydrocarbon chains of
different lengths. These different hydrocarbon chemicals are separated by
distillation at an oil refinery to produce gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, and
other hydrocarbons. The general formula for these alkanes is CnH2n+2. For
example 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (isooctane), widely used in gasoline, has a
chemical formula of C8H18 and it reacts with oxygen exothermically:
Incomplete combustion of petroleum or gasoline results in production of
potentially toxic byproducts. Too little oxygen results in carbon monoxide.
Combustion in air (which contains mostly nitrogen) results in nitric oxides. For
example:
Formation of petroleum occurs in a variety of mostly endothermic reactions in
high temperature and/or pressure. For example, a kerogen may break down into
hydrocarbons of different lengths.
Biogenic theory
Most geologists view crude oil and natural gas as the product of compression and
heating of ancient organic materials over geological time. Oil is formed from
the preserved remains of prehistoric zooplankton and algae which have been
settled to the sea (or lake) bottom in large quantities under anoxic conditions.
Terrestrial plants, on the other hand, tend to form coal. Over geological time
this organic matter, mixed with mud, is buried under heavy layers of sediment.
The resulting high levels of heat and pressure cause the organic matter to
chemically change during diagenesis, first into a waxy material known as kerogen
which is found in various oil shales around the world, and then with more heat
into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons in a process known as catagenesis.
Geologists often refer to an "oil window" which is the temperature range that
oil forms in—below the minimum temperature oil remains trapped in the form of
kerogen, and above the maximum temperature the oil is converted to natural gas
through the process of thermal cracking. Though this happens at different depths
in different locations around the world, a 'typical' depth for the oil window
might be 4–6 km. Note that even if oil is formed at extreme depths, it may be
trapped at much shallower depths, even if it is not formed there (the Athabasca
Oil Sands is one example).
Because most hydrocarbons are lighter than rock or water, these often migrate
upward through adjacent rock layers until they they either reach the surface or
become trapped beneath impermeable rocks, within porous rocks called reservoirs.
However, the process is not straightforward since it is influenced by
underground water flows, and oil may migrate hundreds of kilometres horizontally
or even short distances downward before becoming trapped in a reservoir.
Concentration of hydrocarbons in a trap forms an oil field, from which the
liquid can be extracted by drilling and pumping.
Three conditions must be present for oil reservoirs to form: first, a source
rock rich in organic material buried deep enough for subterranean heat to cook
it into oil; second, a porous and permeable reservoir rock for it to accumulate
in; and last a cap rock (seal) or other mechanism that prevents it from escaping
to the surface. Within these reservoirs fluids will typically organize
themselves like a three-layer cake with with a layer of water below the oil
layer and a layer of gas above it, although the different layers vary in size
between reservoirs.
The vast majority of oil that has been produced by the earth has long ago
escaped to the surface and been biodegraded by oil-eating bacteria. Oil
companies are looking for the small fraction that has been trapped by this rare
combination of circumstances. Oil sands are reservoirs of partially biodegraded
oil still in the process of escaping, but contain so much migrating oil that,
although most of it has escaped, vast amounts are still present - more than can
be found in conventional oil reservoirs. On the other hand, oil shales are
source rocks that have never been buried deep enough to convert their trapped
kerogen into oil.
The reactions that produce oil and natural gas are often modeled as first order
breakdown reactions, where kerogen is broken down to oil and natural gas by a
set of parallel reactions, and oil eventually breaks down to natural gas by
another set of reactions. The first set was originally patented in 1694 under
British Crown Patent No. 330 covering,
"a way to extract and make great quantityes of pitch, tarr, and oyle out of a
sort of stone."
The latter set is regularly used in petrochemical plants and oil refineries.
Abiogenic theory
Abiogenic petroleum origin
The idea of abiogenic petroleum origin was championed in the Western world by
astronomer Thomas Gold based on thoughts from Russia, mainly on studies of
Nikolai Kudryavtsev. The idea proposes that hydrocarbons of purely geological
origin exist in the planet. Hydrocarbons are less dense than aqueous pore
fluids, and are proposed to migrate upward through deep fracture networks.
Thermophilic, rock-dwelling microbial life-forms are proposed to be in part
responsible for the biomarkers found in petroleum.
This theory is a minority opinion, especially amongst Western geologists; no
Western oil companies are currently known to explore for oil based on this
theory, although Russia is known to have applied this theory with some success.
Classification
The oil industry classifies "crude" by the location of its origin (e.g., "West
Texas Intermediate, WTI" or "Brent") and often by its relative weight or
viscosity ("light", "intermediate" or "heavy"); refiners may also refer to it as
"sweet," which means it contains relatively little sulfur, or as "sour," which
means it contains substantial amounts of sulfur and requires more refining in
order to meet current product specifications. Each crude oil has unique
molecular characteristics which are understood by the use of crude oil assay
analysis in petroleum laboratories.
Barrels from an area in which the crude oil's molecular characteristics have
been determined and the oil has been classified are used as pricing references
throughout the world. These references are known as Crude oil benchmarks:
* Brent Crude, comprising 15 oils from fields in the Brent and Ninian systems in
the East Shetland Basin of the North Sea. The oil is landed at Sullom Voe
terminal in the Shetlands. Oil production from Europe, Africa and Middle Eastern
oil flowing West tends to be priced off the price of this oil, which forms a
benchmark.
* West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for North American oil.
* Dubai, used as benchmark for Middle East oil flowing to the Asia-Pacific
region.
* Tapis (from Malaysia, used as a reference for light Far East oil)
* Minas (from Indonesia, used as a reference for heavy Far East oil)
* The OPEC Reference Basket, a weighted average of oil blends from various OPEC
(The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) countries.
Means of production
Petroleum Industry
Extraction
Extraction of petroleum
The most common method of obtaining petroleum is extracting it from oil wells
found in oil fields. With improved technologies and higher demand for
hydrocarbons various methods are applied in petroleum exploration and
development to optimize the recovery of oil and gas. Primary recovery methods
are used to extract oil that is brought to the surface by underground pressure,
and can generally recover about 20% of the oil present. The natural pressure can
come from several different sources; where it is provided by an underlying water
layer it is called a water drive reservoir and where it is from the gas cap
above it is called gas drive. After the reservoir pressure has depleted to the
point that the oil is no longer brought to the surface, secondary recovery
methods draw another 5 to 10% of the oil in the well to the surface. In a water
drive oil field, water can be injected into the water layer below the oil, and
in a gas drive field it can be injected into the gas cap above to repressurize
the reservoir. Finally, when secondary oil recovery methods are no longer
viable, tertiary recovery methods reduce the viscosity of the oil in order to
bring more to the surface. These generally involve the injection of heat and/or
solvents.
Alternative methods
During the last oil price peak, other alternatives to producing oil gained
importance. The best known such methods involve extracting oil from sources such
as oil shale or tar sands. These resources are known to exist in large
quantities; however, extracting the oil at low cost without negatively impacting
the environment remains a challenge.
It is also possible to transform natural gas or coal into oil (or, more
precisely, the various hydrocarbons found in oil). The best-known such method is
the Fischer-Tropsch process. It was a concept pioneered in Nazi Germany when
imports of petroleum were restricted due to war and Germany found a method to
extract oil from coal. It was known as Ersatz ("substitute" in German), and
accounted for nearly half the total oil used in WWII by Germany. However, the
process was used only as a last resort as naturally occurring oil was much
cheaper. As crude oil prices increase, the cost of coal to oil conversion
becomes comparatively cheaper. The method involves converting high ash coal into
synthetic oil in a multi-stage process. Ideally, a ton of coal produces nearly
200 liters (1.25 bbl, 52 US gallons) of crude, with by-products ranging from tar
to rare chemicals.
Currently, two companies have commercialised their Fischer-Tropsch technology.
Shell in Bintulu, Malaysia, uses natural gas as a feedstock, and produces
primarily low-sulfur diesel fuels. Sasol in South Africa uses coal as a
feedstock, and produces a variety of synthetic petroleum products.
The process is today used in South Africa to produce most of the country's
diesel fuel from coal by the company Sasol. The process was used in South Africa
to meet its energy needs during its isolation under Apartheid. This process has
received renewed attention in the quest to produce low sulfur diesel fuel in
order to minimize the environmental impact from the use of diesel engines.
An alternative method of converting coal into petroleum is the Karrick process,
which was pioneered in the 1930s in the United States. It uses high temperatures
in the absence of ambient air, to distill the short-chain hydrocarbons of
petroleum out of coal.
More recently explored is thermal depolymerization (TDP), a process for the
reduction of complex organic materials into light crude oil. Using pressure and
heat, long chain polymers of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon decompose into
short-chain petroleum hydrocarbons. This mimics the natural geological processes
thought to be involved in the production of fossil fuels. In theory, TDP can
convert any organic waste into petroleum.
History
Petroleum, in some form or other, is not a substance new in the world's history.
More than four thousand years ago, according to Herodotus and confirmed by
Diodorus Siculus, asphalt was employed in the construction of the walls and
towers of Babylon; there were oil pits near Ardericca (near Babylon), and a
pitch spring on Zacynthus. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the
river Issus, one of the tributaries of the Euphrates. Ancient Persian tablets
indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of
their society.
The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China in 347 CE or earlier. They
had depths of up to about 800 feet (244 m) and were drilled using bits attached
to bamboo poles. The oil was burned to evaporate brine and produce salt. By the
10th century, extensive bamboo pipelines connected oil wells with salt springs.
The ancient records of China and Japan are said to contain many allusions to the
use of natural gas for lighting and heating. Petroleum was known as burning
water in Japan in the 7th century.
The Middle East petroleum industry was established by the 8th century, when the
streets of the newly constructed Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from
easily accessible petroleum from natural fields in the region. In the 9th
century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan,
to produce naphtha. These fields were described by the geographer Masudi in the
10th century, and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of
those wells as hundreds of shiploads. Petroleum was distilled by Persian chemist
al-Razi in the 9th century, producing chemicals such as kerosene in the
al-ambiq. (See also: Alchemy (Islam), Islamic science, and Timeline of science
and technology in the Islamic world.)
The earliest mention of American petroleum occurs in Sir Walter Raleigh's
account of the Trinidad Pitch Lake in 1595; whilst thirty-seven years later, the
account of a visit of a Franciscan, Joseph de la Roche d'Allion, to the oil
springs of New York was published in Sagard's Histoire du Canada. A Russian
traveller, Peter Kalm, in his work on America published in 1748 showed on a map
the oil springs of Pennsylvania.
The modern history of petroleum began in 1846 with the discovery of the process
of refining kerosene from coal by Nova Scotia's Abraham Pineo Gesner.
Oil sands were mined from 1745 in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn, Alsace under the
direction of Louis Pierre Ancillon de la Sablonnière, by special appointement of
Louis XV. The Pechelbronn oil field was active until 1970, and was the birth
place of companies like Antar and Schlumberger. The first modern refinery was
built there in 1857.
Poland's Ignacy ?ukasiewicz improved Gesner's method to develop a means of
refining kerosene from the more readily available "rock oil" ("petr-oleum")
seeps in 1852 and the first rock oil mine was built in Bóbrka, near Krosno in
southern Poland in the following year. These discoveries rapidly spread around
the world, and Meerzoeff built the first Russian refinery in the mature oil
fields at Baku in 1861. At that time Baku produced about 90% of the world's oil.
Oil field in California, 1938.
The first commercial oil well drilled in North America was in Oil Springs,
Ontario, Canada in 1858, dug by James Miller Williams. The US petroleum industry
began with Edwin Drake's drilling of a 69 foot (21 m) oil well in 1859, on Oil
Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania, for the Seneca Oil Company (originally
yielding 25 barrels a day, by the end of the year output was at the rate of 15
barrels). The industry grew slowly in the 1800s, driven by the demand for
kerosene and oil lamps. It became a major national concern in the early part of
the 20th century; the introduction of the internal combustion engine provided a
demand that has largely sustained the industry to this day. Early "local" finds
like those in Pennsylvania and Ontario were quickly outpaced by demand, leading
to "oil booms" in Texas, Oklahoma, and California.
Early production of crude petroleum in the United States:
* 1859: bbl ( t)
* 1869: bbl ( t)
* 1879: bbl ( t)
* 1889: bbl ( t)
* 1899: bbl ( t)
* 1906: 126,493,936 barrels (~21,600,000 t)
By 1910, significant oil fields had been discovered in Canada (specifically, in
the province of Ontario), the Dutch East Indies (1885, in Sumatra), Iran (1908,
in Masjed Soleiman), Peru, Venezuela, and Mexico, and were being developed at an
industrial level.
Even until the mid-1950s, coal was still the world's foremost fuel, but oil
quickly took over. Following the 1973 energy crisis and the 1979 energy crisis,
there was significant media coverage of oil supply levels. This brought to light
the concern that oil is a limited resource that will eventually run out, at
least as an economically viable energy source. At the time, the most common and
popular predictions were always quite dire, and when they did not come true,
many dismissed all such discussion. The future of petroleum as a fuel remains
somewhat controversial. USA Today news (2004) reports that there are 40 years of
petroleum left in the ground. Some would argue that because the total amount of
petroleum is finite, the dire predictions of the 1970s have merely been
postponed. Others argue that technology will continue to allow for the
production of cheap hydrocarbons and that the earth has vast sources of
unconventional petroleum reserves in the form of tar sands, bitumen fields and
oil shale that will allow for petroleum use to continue in the future, with both
the Canadian tar sands and United States shale oil deposits representing
potential reserves matching existing liquid petroleum deposits worldwide.
Today, about 90% of vehicular fuel needs are met by oil. Petroleum also makes up
40% of total energy consumption in the United States, but is responsible for
only 2% of electricity generation. Petroleum's worth as a portable, dense energy
source powering the vast majority of vehicles and as the base of many industrial
chemicals makes it one of the world's most important commodities. Access to it
was a major factor in several military conflicts including World War II and the
Persian Gulf Wars of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The
top three oil producing countries are Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United
States. About 80% of the world's readily accessible reserves are located in the
Middle East, with 62.5% coming from the Arab 5: Saudi Arabia (12.5%), UAE, Iraq,
Qatar and Kuwait. However, with today's oil prices, Venezuela has larger
reserves than Saudi Arabia due to crude reserves derived from bitumen.
Uses
The chemical structure of petroleum is composed of hydrocarbon chains of
different lengths. Because of this, petroleum may be taken to oil refineries and
the hydrocarbon chemicals separated by distillation and treated by other
chemical processes, to be used for a variety of purposes. See Petroleum
products.
Fuels
Further information: alternative fuel
* Ethane and other short-chain alkanes which are used as fuel
* Diesel fuel (petrodiesel)
* Fuel oils
* Gasoline
* Jet fuel
* Kerosene
* Liquid petroleum gas (LPG)
* Natural gas
Generaly used in transportation, power plants and heating.
Petroleum vehicles are internal combustion engine vehicles.
Other derivatives
Certain types of resultant hydrocarbons may be mixed with other
non-hydrocarbons, to create other end products:
* Alkenes (olefins) which can be manufactured into plastics or other compounds
* Lubricants (produces light machine oils, motor oils, and greases, adding
viscosity stabilizers as required).
* Wax, used in the packaging of frozen foods, among others.
* Sulfur or Sulfuric acid. These are a useful industrial materials. Sulfuric
acid is usually prepared as the acid precursor oleum, a byproduct of sulfur
removal from fuels.
* Bulk tar.
* Asphalt
* Petroleum coke, used in speciality carbon products or as solid fuel.
* Paraffin wax
* Aromatic petrochemicals to be used as precursors in other chemical production.
Consumption statistics
Enlarge picture
Global fossil carbon emissions, an indicator of consumption, for 1800-2000.
Total is black. Oil is in blue.
2004 U.S. government predictions for oil production other than in OPEC and the
former Soviet Union
World energy consumption, 1980-2030. Source: International Energy Outlook 2006.
Environmental effects
Enlarge picture
Diesel fuel spill on a road
The presence of oil has significant social and environmental impacts, from
accidents and routine activities such as seismic exploration, drilling, and
generation of polluting wastes not produced by other alternative energies.
Extraction
Oil extraction is costly and sometimes environmentally damaging, although Dr.
John Hunt of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution pointed out in a 1981
paper that over 70% of the reserves in the world are associated with visible
macroseepages, and many oil fields are found due to natural leaks. Offshore
exploration and extraction of oil disturbs the surrounding marine environment.
But at the same time, offshore oil platforms also form micro-habitats for marine
creatures. Extraction may involve dredging, which the seabed, killing the sea
plants that marine creatures need to survive.
Oil spills
Enlarge picture
Volunteers cleaning up the aftermath of the Prestige oil spill
Crude oil and refined fuel spills from tanker ship accidents have damaged
natural ecosystems in Alaska, the Galapagos Islands, France and many other
places and times in Spain (i.e. Ibiza).
The quantity of oil spilled during accidents has ranged from a few hundred tons
to several hundred thousand tons (Atlantic Empress, Amoco Cadiz...). Smaller
spills have already proven to have a great impact on ecosystems, such as the
Exxon Valdez oil spill
Global warming
Global warming
Burning oil releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which contributes to
global warming. Per energy unit, oil produces less CO2 than coal, but more than
natural gas. However, oil's unique role as a transportation fuel makes reducing
its CO2 emissions a particularly thorny problem; amelioration strategies such as
carbon sequestering are generally geared for large power plants, not individual
vehicles.
Whales
It has been argued that the advent of kerosene was one development, which saved
the great cetaceans from extinction.
Alternatives to petroleum
Renewable energy
Alternatives to petroleum-based vehicle fuels
Main articles: Alternative propulsion, Biofuel, Fuel economy, and Hydrogen
economy
The term alternative propulsion or "alternative methods of propulsion" includes
both:
* alternative fuels used in standard or modified internal combustion engines
(i.e. combustion hydrogen or biofuels).
* propulsion systems not based on internal combustion, such as those based on
electricity (for example, all-electric or hybrid vehicles), compressed air, or
fuel cells (i.e. hydrogen fuel cells).
Nowadays, cars can be classified between the next main groups:
* Petro-cars, this is, only use petroleum and biofuels (biodiesel and
biobutanol).
* Hybrid vehicle and plug-in hybrids, that use petroleum and other source,
generally, electricity.
* Petrofree car, that can not use petroleum, like electric cars, hydrogen
vehicles...
The future of petroleum production
Hubbert peak theory
Hubbert peak theory
The Hubbert peak theory (also known as peak oil) is a proposition which predicts
that future world petroleum production must inevitably reach a peak and then
decline at a similar rate to the rate of increase before the peak as these
reserves are exhausted. It also suggests a method to calculate mathematically
the timing of this peak, based on past production rates, past discovery rates,
and proven oil reserves.
Controversy surrounds the theory for numerous reasons. Past predictions
regarding the timing of the global peak have failed, causing a number of
observers to disregard the theory. Further, predictions regarding the timing of
the peak are highly dependent on the past production and discovery data used in
the calculation.
Proponents of peak oil theory also refer as an example of their theory, that
when any given oil well produces oil in similar volumes to the amount of water
used to obtain the oil, it tends to produce less oil afterwards, leading to the
relatively quick exhaustion and/or commercial inviability of the well in
question.
The issue can be considered from the point of view of individual regions or of
the world as a whole. Hubbert's prediction for when US oil production would peak
turned out to be correct, and after this occurred in 1971 - causing the US to
lose its excess production capacity - OPEC was finally able to manipulate oil
prices, which led to the 1973 oil crisis. Since then, most other countries have
also peaked: the United Kingdom's North Sea, for example in the late 1990s.
China has confirmed that two of its largest producing regions are in decline,
and Mexico's national oil company, Pemex, has announced that Cantarell Field,
one of the world's largest offshore fields, was expected to peak in 2006, and
then decline 14% per annum.
It is difficult to predict the oil peak in any given region (due to the lack of
transparency in accounting of global oil reserves ) . Based on available
production data, proponents have previously (and incorrectly) predicted the peak
for the world to be in years 1989, 1995, or 1995-2000. Some of these predictions
date from before the recession of the early 1980s, and the consequent reduction
in global consumption, the effect of which was to delay the date of any peak by
several years. A new prediction by Goldman Sachs picks 2007 for oil and some
time later for natural gas. Just as the 1971 U.S. peak in oil production was
only clearly recognized after the fact, a peak in world production will be
difficult to discern until production clearly drops off.
Many proponents of the Hubbert peak theory expound the belief that the
production peak is imminent, for various reasons. The year 2005 saw a dramatic
fall in announced new oil projects coming to production from 2008 onwards - in
order to avoid the peak, these new projects would have to not only make up for
the depletion of current fields, but increase total production annually to meet
increasing demand.
The year 2005 also saw substantial increases in oil prices due to a number of
circumstances, including war and political instability. Oil prices rose to new
highs. Analysts such as Kenneth Deffeyes argue that these price increases
indicate a general lack of spare capacity, and the price fluctuations can be
interpreted as a sign that peak oil is imminent.
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Internet Junction For Gamers, Runescape Market and More IJFG.COM
IJFG.com
. Of course the king of all game cheating websites is
trick the trik trik.com where you can find forums,
top ranking sites and any game related topics.
Another useful site is
Rune Web ruwb.com . This site
is about more serious runescape gold trading, account exchange, gold for real
life cash and many services. And the tips how toavoid getting lured/scammed
while using market place. Black, red stuffs. For programming, visual basics,
java, C/C++, scar and all other languages such as PHP, HTML, ASP, Delphi. There
are also sections for graphics talents. Plus many cool video and fund stuff.
How do you compare the best
runescape website or forums? Here comes the Best Runescape Internet Ranks:
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Runescape Internet Ranks. BRIR BRIR.com
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