become or became (or "are", or "have been")

Question

I've translated a bit of text and is unsure which form to use: become or became.

Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used at sites that have:
- wells with low output gas pressure,
- wells exhibiting a sharp drop in production despite a constant reservoir pressure,
- wells whose bottom hole areas become (became?) mudded-up during drilling or workover.

Is this "become" okay, or should "became" be used, or are both options acceptable? I've just thought that "are" could be used too. That gives three additional options:

• wells whose bottom hole areas are mudded-up during drilling or workover.
• wells whose bottom hole areas became mudded-up during drilling or workover.
• wells whose bottom hole areas have been mudded-up during drilling or workover.

As an aside, I wonder which is better: "can be used at sites.." or "could be used at sites..".

Answer 1

The answer is...neither. Here's why.

The passage you've provided is in the progressive aspect, which means that the verb in each bullet point is expressing an action that began some time in the past but is continuing through the present moment.

Wells with low gas pressure

could be rephrased as

Wells having low gas pressure

The aspect is suppressed as written because there is no verb used at all, but if one was used, it would be a progressive verb. In

Wells exhibiting a sharp drop

there is an express progressive verb.

The verb in the last sentence should be consistent with the first two. In this case, this means another progressive construction:

Wells whose bottom holes have become clogged with mud

As a side note: unless "mudded-up" is a well-understood industry term of art, use a different phrase, as this is not a very common English term. If you mean there is a layer of mud near the hole, say "muddy"; if you mean the hole is full of mud and therefore no flow is coming through it, say "clogged with mud."

As for "can" versus "could," either is acceptable, but they have different inferences. "Can" suggests you are talking about a product that exists; "could" suggests a hypothetical or unfinished product or a product not currently used for the purpose you're discussing.

Answer 2

The selected wording should work without the other two cases, as a single sentence

• Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used at sites that have wells whose bottom hole areas become (became?) mudded-up during drilling or workover.

This become now sounds wrong, unless you mean that the boosting stations are appropriate at site that routinely get "mudded up" even after the boosting stations are implemented.

If the boosting station is a remedy for the mudded-up well, then I would prefer either of these:

• Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used at sites that have wells whose bottom hole areas were mudded-up during drilling or workover.

• Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used at sites that have wells whose bottom hole areas have become mudded-up during drilling or workover.

As far as selecting between? I would choose the first to avoid having two instances of have in close proximity performing different syntactical functions.

Answer 3

I agree with chapka on the immediate issue ("have become" is better than "become" or "became"), but I think you could write the passage in a slightly shorter, clearer format:

Your original:

Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used at sites that have:
- wells with low output gas pressure,
- wells exhibiting a sharp drop in production despite a constant reservoir pressure,
- wells whose bottom hole areas become (became?) mudded-up during drilling or workover.

reworked slightly:

Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used at sites with wells that have:
- low output gas pressure
- a sharp drop in production despite constant reservoir pressure
- bottom-hole areas that have become mudded up during drilling or workover.

The primary change, as you can see, is that I've pulled the common element of "wells" out of each list item and into the lead-in; other minor tweaks are the aforementioned use of "have become", hyphenating the compound modifier "bottom-hole", and eliminating the article before 'constant'.

Answer 4

In the case of your translation, the correct usage is

"wells whose bottom hole areas become mudded-up during drilling or workover."

The logic behind this is that you are trying to give a condition in which "Piston-type modular gas boosting stations" can be used. Therefore you are defining the general conditions in which it can be applied therefore it is suggested you use participle form "become" in order to give a present tense linked position describing the conditions of the bottom holes of the well. If you use the word "became" then you would be giving the imperfect subjunctive tense which would give a description more suited to that of the past tense when being described from a narrative point, i.e

"The food became cold after 4 hours."

The difference between "can be used" and "could be used" is hard to describe but i will try my best.

"can" tends to give an indication of something that is possible in the given tense. "could" tends to give an indication of something that is plausible, the words could is conditional as it leans heavier on the fulfillment of some conditions before completion.

The usage of "can" in the scenario of your second example gives a clear cut statement which comes from a more authoritative point as you are saying what can be done. You are leaving nothing to plausibility as you have defined that it is true that the machines are usable if the scenarios mentioned match the environment

• wells with low output gas pressure.
• wells exhibiting a sharp drop in production despite a constant reservoir pressure.
• wells whose bottom hole areas become (became?) mudded-up during drilling or workover.

So if you wish to insist that the conditions you have mentioned in your second example have to be met in order to successfully make it possible for the gas boosting stations to work then you would be better off using "could" in my opinion.

Hope this helps :)

Answer 5

Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used at sites that have:

• wells with low output gas pressure,
• wells exhibiting a sharp drop in production despite a constant reservoir pressure,
• wells whose bottom hole areas become mudded-up during drilling or workover.

Is this "become" okay, or should "became" be used, or are both options acceptable? I've just thought that "are" could be used too. That gives three additional options:

• wells whose bottom hole areas are mudded-up during drilling or workover.
• wells whose bottom hole areas became mudded-up during drilling or workover.
• wells whose bottom hole areas have been mudded-up during drilling or workover.

As an aside, I wonder which is better: "can be used at sites.." or "could be used at sites..".

Can or Could?

Let's look at the use of can or could first. Notice that in the opening part of the sentence we have both can and the present tense form have:

• Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used at sites that have:

The fact that can is used and that have is present tense, indicate that 'Piston-type modular gas boosting stations' actually are used. We use can in this way to show that something does happen occasionally or even often. For example:

• Accidents can happen with this machine when don't use the face mask.

This is the right verb to use here because 'Piston-type modular gas boosting stations' actually are used. If we used the verb could here, this would imply that it is theoretically possible that they are used. This would make the reader that they haven't been used yet. This would be misleading.

Become

Present simple become, like can and have can be used here to reflect that we are talking about bottom hole areas that become mudded up generally, not a specific hole at a specific time in the future. This puts it on a par with:

• people who get lost
• pipes which burst
• rubbish which gets thrown away

Notice that the relative clause "whose bottom hole areas become mudded up ..." has the effect of restricting the situations in which piston stations are used. We could achieve the same effect by using a zero conditional:

• Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used if the bottom hole areas of the wells become mudded up.

Notice that this is a so-called 'zero conditional'. This type of construction is commonly used to show situations which generally apply all the time such as "if you heat water to 100 degrees, it boils". Again these conditionals use present tenses in both clauses.

Have become

The present perfect construction can be used effectively here. It shows the holes as having been mudded up at some indefinite time in the past. We don't know or care when they became blocked. Because what is important here is the effect of hole areas being blocked, not when or how they became blocked, the present perfect is a suitable choice here. We often use the present perfect to portray events in the past which have an effect on a present situation.

Are mudded up

It is the situation of wells being blocked, which makes them suitable for boosting station. We are not really interested in the process or action of becoming blocked. Because we are interested in the situation and the effect this has, we can use the verb BE and a predicative complement to describe the situation. The predicative complement here is a past participle of MUD in the phrase mudded up. It ised as an adjective here. This construction is perectly suitable to describe this situation.

Became

"Became" is the only option in the Original Poster's examples which is unsuitable for this piece of writing. The past simple form of the verb is used for narrative purposes. We use it when we want to tell a story. Usually in this situation, the reader or listener is familiar with the event or time we are talking about. When we use the past simple we are thinking about a specific time or event in the past.

However, in the Original Poster's example, we do not know - or care - when the holes became blocked. There is no special event that we are thinking of. If we say the wells "became mudded up" this means that this happened in the past. Notice though, that the OP's sentence is really talking about holes that become blocked, will become blocked and have become blocked. It is talking about blocked wells in general - it is not telling us a story about a well, or some wells that got blocked in the past. If we used a past tense here, this would not be able to include wells that become blocked in the future. We need to use a form that shows that piston boosting stations can be used for any blocked wells that occur, not just blocked wells in the past!

Conclusion

To sum up, there are many constructions that the Original Poster could use well in this piece of writing. However, the past simple tense is not good for describing situations that regularly occur.

Answer 6

You wrote...

Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used at sites that have...

You are talking about the probability of those stations and then listing down the places/sites those are eligible.

IMO, the simple verb become won't work in that become bullet point. That's because you are talking about the sites' conditions that have already happened.

So, my choice is '...got mudded-up...'.

The drilling or workover is the reason of the muddy bottom, and we often use got to talk about some causative factor.

Say...

The entire project got messed up during the initial phase itself.

If you try to fit in is..

The entire project is messed up during the initial phase itself - you are talking about the present condition as if you are still in initial phase and working on the solution. The sentence could be followed by ... Let's work on it.

If you try to fit in became...

The entire project became messed up during the initial phase itself - it seems a bit down to me because of the construction [anything] became + verb

I feel, got mudded-up suits better as in this context, it talks about the reason of being mudded-up and also the result of 'muddy' bottom.

Answer 7

First of all, I'm not a specialist regarding piston-type modular gas boosting stations and I don't know how they work.

From what I see:

Piston-type modular gas boosting stations can be used at sites that have: - wells with low output gas pressure, - wells exhibiting a sharp drop in production despite a constant reservoir pressure, - wells whose bottom hole areas become (became?) mudded-up during drilling or workover.

• Sites that have (have what > wells)
• bottom hole areas (of wells) (which usually/always) become mudded-up (not sure about what exactly did you mean, so I won't suggest a better term) during/after the process.

So it doesn't matter which tense you will use after "wells", because it's merely a description of "wells" - you are not handcuffed here.

I'm 100% negative about "Have Become" - because it means that "wells" "have become" mudded-up once in the past and not during every drilling/workover proccess.

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It's all about what do you want to tell to ones who will read that description. You can construct it "more correct" in terms of tense, but the actual information and meaning you try to inform readers with will be inaccurate.

Hope it will be somehow helpful.