Oil's Slide Set To Leave Dark Trail
随着全球经济衰退的影响日渐加剧，已经暴跌的石油价格近期可能还将继续走低。
Already in free fall, the price of oil could soon push much lower as the effects of a global recession take hold.
纽约商交所原油期货价格周四下跌3.12美元，至每桶43.67美元，跌幅6.7%。许多石油业内人士和交易员现在都认为，油价可能进一步下跌至每桶40美元以下，然后的减产可能会推动油价回升，也许这要到明年较晚的时候了。这种改变来自以下多个因素的共同作用：库存上升、炼油厂油品质量的变化以及需求的严重恶化。
Crude fell $3.12, or 6.7%, to settle at $43.67 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday. Many oil-industry insiders and traders now say prices could slump much lower, into the $30s, before supply cuts push prices back up, perhaps much later into next year. The changes come from a combustible mix of factors -- a rise in inventories, shifts in the quality of oil used by refiners, and severely deteriorating demand.
西方石油公司(Occidental Petroleum Corp.)总裁兼首席财务长史蒂芬?查森(Stephen Chazen)说，我不认为下跌已经结束。我不清楚油价的底在哪里，但我认为跌势还未结束。
'I don't think we're through with the drop. I don't know where it stops, but I don't think we're through,' said Steve Chazen, president and chief financial officer of Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp.
油价下跌短期内会对消费者和企业带来好处，从合用汽车的父母、使用取暖油的家庭到航空公司都会受益。但油价持续下跌也会带来令人痛苦的负面影响。能源驱动的经济──从得克萨斯和阿拉斯加到委内瑞拉和俄罗斯──会面临巨大冲击，失业会影响到钻井平台的工程师和其他技术人员的就业，为其提供支持服务的会计人员、酒店和餐馆也会受到影响。
Lower oil prices are a short-term gain for consumers and businesses, from carpooling parents to households using heating oil to airlines. But a sustained decline in the price of oil also has painful downsides. Energy-driven economies -- in areas from Texas and Alaska to Venezuela and Russia -- can face huge busts, with job losses affecting employment for engineers and roughnecks on rigs as well as the accountants, hotels and restaurants that support them.
油价下跌也降低了推动昂贵的可再生能源项目的政治意愿，减少了在汽车燃油效率和海上钻井等问题上优先考虑哪些能源政策的紧迫性。这样做的潜在危险是当需求出现回升时，由于供应面的缓冲作用下降，油价会大幅冲高。
Sinking oil prices also reduce the political will to push ahead with costly renewable-energy projects, and reduce the urgency to prioritize energy-policy debates on topics ranging from auto efficiency to offshore drilling. The danger is that when demand does bounce back, prices will boomerang far higher because the supply cushion has shrunk.
今年夏季时原油价格曾创出每桶147美元的盘中高点。油价的快速下跌损害了业内企业，油价下跌也打击了它们的收入，它们可投入项目的现金减少了。
The swift decline in prices -- crude hit an intraday high this summer of $147 a barrel -- is hurting industry players, who have less cash to spend on projects as lower prices hurt their revenues.
由于利润率下降，它们的投资热情也不如以往。周三，全球市值最大的油田服务公司斯伦贝谢(Schlumberger Ltd.)称，2008年的收益将低于分析师的预期，原因是全球油气生产放缓。钻井平台数量也已开始大幅下降。
They also have less incentive to invest as their margins get crushed. Wednesday, Schlumberger Ltd., the world's largest oil-field-services firm by market capitalization, said its 2008 earnings will miss analysts' estimates as oil and gas production slows world-wide. Industry drilling-rig counts have begun falling sharply.
研究机构Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.认为，石油行业盈亏平衡的平均成本区间为每桶35-40美元，具体数字会因项目和其它因素的不同而有所变化。周四的收盘价大大低于每桶70-75美元这个开发商在新的钻探项目上能够获得9%预期回报的边际成本。
Research firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. puts the oil industry's average break-even cost zone at $35 to $40 a barrel, though the figure can vary by project and based on other factors. Thursday's closing price is well below the $70 to $75 marginal cost at which producers this year could earn an expected return of roughly 9% on new drilling projects.
北美的收缩幅度可能最大，但斯伦贝谢的公告表明世界各地的项目也可能紧跟其后。对于重新开发俄克拉荷马长期荒芜的油井、用新技术救活西德克萨斯州老油田或从加拿大油砂中提取石油的项目而言，价格需要高于甚至远高于目前水平，除非成本也出现下降。如果油价长期低于每桶40美元，墨西哥湾或北海的一些深海项目可能面临危险。
North America is likely to see the sharpest retrenchment, but Schlumberger's announcement suggests international projects could follow. Projects that revived long-dormant wells in Oklahoma, used new technologies to salvage old West Texas oil fields or extracted oil from tar sands in Canada require prices above current levels, in some cases far above, unless costs also fall. Some deepwater projects in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea would be imperiled if prices fell below $40 for an extended period.
西方石油公司的查森说，即使已宣布的减产措施距离真正实行也要有几个月的时间，这会增加供应过剩的压力。他说，减产并不容易，你要签订合同，制定计划。这可能需要两、三个季度的时间，不是一下子就能做到的。
Occidental's Mr. Chazen says even announced production cuts may be months from taking place, adding to the glut. 'Slowing it down is hard. You sign contracts, you make plans,' he says. 'It may take you two or three quarters. It can't be done instantly.'
意料之外的供应中断可能会阻止价格的进一步暴跌。长期来看，生产商仍在努力跟上全球消费的趋势。价格的下滑可能会使石油输出国组织(OPEC，简称：欧佩克)更加坚定了在12月17日的安哥拉会议上大幅减产的决心。据报导引述，沙特国王阿卜杜拉(Abdullah)最近表示，每桶75美元的油价是“合理价格”。如果说在眼下波动的石油市场上有什么是确定无疑的，那就是不可预测性。
A further collapse in prices could be forestalled by unexpected supply disruptions. Producers are still struggling long-term to keep pace with global consumption trends. The price drop could stiffen the resolve of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to slash production when members meet in Angola Dec. 17. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, recently was quoted as saying $75 a barrel is the 'fair price' of oil. If anything, unpredictability is the only certainty in today's volatile oil markets.
但是越来越多的业内人士说，考验市场低点的条件现在已经成熟了。历史上，欧佩克都是进行了很多次的尝试才遏制住了价格的下滑。从俄克拉荷马州的库辛到新加坡，各地石油库存过剩的现象都愈演愈烈。甚至是在中国这个全球屈指可数的几个不断增长的市场之一中，石油库存也在增加。
But a growing number of industry insiders say conditions are now ripe to test the market's lows. It has historically taken OPEC many attempts to stem price declines. A sea of excess inventory is building from Cushing, Okla., to Singapore. Even in China, one of the few growing markets around the globe, stockpiles are rising.
支撑油价的最为令人注目的短期措施之一是期货市场上所谓的“升水”。简单的说，就是即期交割的石油价格远远低于几个月或是几年后交割的期货价格。周四，1月交割石油的结算价为43.67美元，分别较一年后和两年后交割的价格低14美元和23美元，较2016年交割的价格更是低39美元。
One of the most striking short-term pulls on oil prices is a futures-market condition called contango. Simply put, oil is vastly cheaper to lay hands on now than it is for delivery months or years in advance. Thursday's settlement for January delivery, $43.67, is roughly $14 cheaper than delivery a year from now, $23 cheaper than two years from now, and a whopping $39 cheaper than delivery in 2016.
Barclays Capital称，相反的情况──也就是石油现货价格高于期货价格──不仅时常发生，而且现在出现的“升水”中的价差也是多年来的最高水平。“升水”刺激那些能负担得起的人把石油握在手里。库存增加，进而导致现货价格下滑，因为人们需要卖掉石油。
Not only does the opposite condition often occur, where spot oil is more expensive, but the contango conditions present today also feature spreads at their widest in years, Barclays Capital says. Contango incentivizes those who can afford to hold oil to hold on to it. Storage fills up, and that causes the spot price to fall because people need to unload oil.
债务危机是导致失衡的原因之一，因为库存占去了本来已经稀缺的营运资金。大型国际石油交易商Vitol Group的高管洛亚(Mike Loya)说，即使是那些需要石油现货的人也努力到1月2日再交割，这样就不会显示在他们年底的资产负债表里。
The debt crisis is one reason for the imbalance, since inventories tie up scarce working capital. 'Even people who require physical barrels are trying to take it on Jan. 2, so it won't show up on their balance sheet at the end of the year,' says Mike Loya, an executive with large international oil trader Vitol Group.
据能源情报署(Energy Information Administration)的数据，截至10月底，经济合作与发展组织(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)中的工业化国家中，石油库存量升至可以满足未来56天消费的水平，远远超出了历史水平。
Industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development saw stocks rise to 56 days of forward consumption as of the end of October, well above historic levels, according to the Energy Information Administration.
在美国，原油库存高于5年平均水平。交易员还发现租赁油轮作为靠岸浮仓储油能有良好收益，靠岸浮仓有助于库存的增加。
In the U.S., crude-oil stocks are above five-year averages. Traders have also found it profitable to lease tankers for floating storage, which helps inventories to build.
威胁油价的不仅仅是金融操纵。适于生产柴油的轻质低硫原油的溢价也随着柴油需求的萎缩而降低。
It isn't just financial maneuvers threatening the price of oil. The premium that the market gave light, sweet crude oil, which is well-suited for making diesel, has dwindled as diesel demand has shrunk.
德意志银行(Deutsche Bank AG)分析师西敏斯基(Adam Sieminski)预计被普遍采用的、在定价中举足轻重的纽约商交所和伦敦轻质低硫石油基准价格会进一步走软，因为印度和中国都开始明显增大用质量较差的原油炼油的生产能力。
Deutsche Bank AG analyst Adam Sieminski expects further weakness in the widely quoted Nymex and London light, sweet oil benchmarks 'that generate pricing headlines' because substantial new refining capacity is starting up in India and China designed to make products from lower-quality crude.
举例来讲，Reliance Industries Ltd.在印度的Jamnagar炼油厂预计将成为世界上进行大幅增产的最大的单址炼油厂，预计将于2009年第一季度开始全面运营。
For example, Reliance Industries Ltd.'s Jamnagar refinery complex in India, set to become the world's largest single-location refinery with a major new expansion, is expected to start full operations in the first quarter of 2009.
此外，还有严酷的需求数据。尽管汽油价格降幅过半，但到上周为止消费依然低迷不振，只出现了小幅上升。在中国，在6月份政府将汽油、柴油和航空燃料价格上调了近20%后，库存近几个月有所增加。Sanford C. Bernstein称，在印度，最近汽车销售出现了3年来的首次回落。
On top of this are stark demand statistics. Despite a drop by more than half in the price of gasoline, consumption until last week remained listless, and only jumped slightly. In China, inventories have risen in recent months after the government increased retail prices for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel by nearly 20% in June. In India, car sales recently saw their first decline in three years, says Sanford C. Bernstein.
在 11月感恩节当周的周末，休斯顿研究机构Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities Inc.邀请客户帮助编写早间报告，这份颇受欢迎的研究报告充斥了能源高管的悲观论调。一位没有具名的石油勘探和开发高管写道：能源和石油业是否正处在6 个月前银行业所处的状况？也就是虽然意识到基本面恶化了，但尚未看到我们正朝着悬崖走去？
A popular research note brimmed with pessimism from energy executives at the end of Thanksgiving week, when Houston research firm Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities Inc. invited clients to help write its morning missive. One unnamed exploration and production executive wrote in: 'Is E&P where the banking sector was six months ago -- recognizing the fundamentals have deteriorated but not yet seeing the cliff we're headed for?'
Ann Davis / Ben Casselman / Carolyn Cui
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