英译汉 原文自economist.com 2007年11月1日
Super-spiked 暴涨的油价
The oil price should fall—eventually 石油价格终将下滑
BACK in 2005, in an apparent flight of fancy, analysts at Goldman Sachs predicted a “super-spike” in the oil price to $105 a barrel. On Wednesday October 31st, the prediction came as close as it ever has to fulfilment, when the price of West Texas Intermediate reached $94.74 during the New York day and breached $96 after hours. But the investment bank’s seers are no longer sure that it will hit their mark soon: the “downside risks” to the price, they had warned investors the day before, were “gaining momentum”.
在2005年梦幻般的油价飞涨时,高盛公司的分析家曾预测石油价格将“暴涨”到每桶105美元。10月31日,本周三,这个预言几近实现——当天西德克萨斯中质原油的价格达到每桶94.74美元,迅即在几个小时以后又突破到96美元。但是高盛公司的分析家们却并不敢保证油价很快会达到他们预言的水平,他们曾在星期二警告投资者说油价的“下滑的危险”正蓄势待发。
The price increases of recent months have stemmed from a marked drop in stockpiles of oil, particularly in America. That indicates that the world is using more than it is producing. Inventories normally dip in summer, when drivers take to the road, pushing up demand for petrol, and in winter, when demand for heating oil surges. In autumn and spring, by contrast, stocks usually rise. But so far this year, there has been no sign of the typical seasonal increase—prompting oil traders to worry that when winter sets in, the world will be short of oil. The prospect that the American economy might grow faster than expected thanks to interest-rate cuts has also fuelled concern.
近几个月油价上涨的主要原因是由于世界石油库存明显减少,尤其是美国。这表明世界对石油的消耗要多于产出。通常说来,在夏季,由于公路上驾车者增多,石油需求量较大,而到了冬季,民用燃料油需求量会剧增。相比较而言,春季和秋季库存通常会增长。但是今年则不同,迄今为止,没有任何迹象表明油价出现典型的季节性上扬,这使得石油商们担心冬季来临时,全世界会处于油荒中。因此,人们对于美国经济能够借助利息率降低而较快增长的期望中又多了几分担忧。
When stocks are low, minor reductions in supply become significant. A recent jump in the price, for example, came after Mexico’s state-owned oil firm announced that it would close down some offshore fields because of bad weather—even though the lost output amounted to less than 1% of global production. Fears of a much graver disruption of supplies, due to brewing political tensions in the Middle East, have also helped to push up the price.
当石油储量下降时,减少石油供应就变得十分重要。例如最近,在墨西哥国有石油公司宣布将会因糟糕的天气而关闭一些近海油田后,油价立即发生跳跃性的变化,尽管因这次关闭而导致的石油减产还不到世界产量的百分之一。由于中东局势紧张而带来的对于石油供给中断的恐惧也对油价攀升起到了推波助澜的作用。
In theory, new supplies should soon be coming onstream. The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has agreed to raise its output slightly this month. But it also dismisses oil traders’ anxieties about shortages, insisting that current supplies are adequate. Non-OPEC suppliers, meanwhile, have plans to tap several new fields in the coming months. But on the whole, they are struggling to increase their output, owing to shortages of engineers and equipment, and to the concomitant rise in development costs. Both BP and Shell, for example, reported recently that they produced less oil in the third quarter of this year than they did in the same period the year before.
理论上来说,不久就应该会有新的石油供应出现。石油输出国组织(欧佩克)本月已经同意稍微提升石油产量。但该组织仍然坚持现有的石油供应足以应付石油短缺问题,而不管石油商们是否对此忧心忡忡。非欧佩克石油供应商们也正在努力提高石油产量,这是由于缺乏足够的石油工程师与采油设备,而且采油的成本也在不断增加。举例来说,最近的一份报道称BP公司和壳牌公司今年第三季度产油量比去年同期有所下降。
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