双语环球新闻：“峰值”石油寒了谁的心

　　New Year' eve has been and gone, but for oilmen, the party continues. On January 2nd, the first business day of the year, the price of their product topped $100 a barrel for the first time. Oil is now almost five times more expensive than it was at the beginning of 2002.

　　It would be natural to assume that ever increasing price reflects ever greater scarcity. And so it does, in a sense. Booming bits of the world, such as China, India and the Middle East have seen demand for oil grow with their economies. Meanwhile, Western oil firms, in particular, are struggling to produce any more of the stuff than they did two or three years ago. That has left little spare production capacity and, in America at least, dwindling stocks. Every time a tempest brews in the Gulf of Mexico or dark clouds appear on the political horizon in the Middle East, jittery markets have pushed prices higher. This week, it was a cold snap in America and turmoil in Nigeria that helped the price reach three figures.

　　No wonder, then, that the phrase “peak oil” has been gaining ground even faster than the oil price. With each extra dollar, the conviction grows that the planet has been wrung dry and will never be able to satisfy the thirst of a busy world.

　　Yet the fact that not enough oil is coming out of the ground does not mean not enough of it is there. There are many other explanations. For one thing, oil producers have tied their own hands. During the 1980s and 1990s, when the price was low and so were profits, they pared back hiring and investment to a minimum. Many ancillary firms that built rigs or collected seismic data shut up shop. Now oil firms want to increase their output again, they do not have the staff or equipment they need.

　　Worse, nowadays, new oil tends to be found in relatively inaccessible spots or in more unwieldy forms. That adds to the cost of extracting oil, because more engineers and more complex machinery are needed to exploit it—but the end of easy oil is a far remove from the jeremiads of peak-oilers. The gooey tar-sands of Canada contain almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia. Eventually, universities will churn out more geologists and shipyards more offshore platforms, though it will take a long time to make up for two decades of underinvestment.

　　The biggest impediment is political. Governments in almost all oil-rich countries, from Ecuador to Kazakhstan, are trying to win a greater share of the industry's bumper profits. The world is facing not peak oil, but a pinnacle of nationalism.

　　新年夜已经来到并且过去了。但是，对于石油商们来说，欢宴还在继续。1月2日，新年后的第一个交易日，他们产品的价格首次达到了100美元一桶。现在的石油价格几乎是2002年初的5倍。

　　人们很自然地会认为，不断上涨的油价反映了更大的石油短缺。在某种意义上说也的确如此。世界上发展迅速的地区如中国、印度和中东对石油的需求随着经济的增长而增长。与此同时，特别是西方石油公司正在全力生产比前两三年更多的石油。产能已经没有余量了，并且，至少在美国，库存也在下降。墨西哥湾每次风暴的酝酿或在中东出现政治乌云，紧张不安的市场都会推动价格上涨。本周，美国的一次骤冷和尼日利亚的动乱使得油价达到了3位数。

　　难怪“峰值石油”一词现在风行得比油价上升的速度还快。每增加一美元，人们就更相信我们的星球正在被榨干，而且永远不能满足这个繁忙的世界。

　　然而，来自地下的石油不够这一事实并不意味着地下石油真的不够。有许多种其他解释。其中之一就是石油生产国自缚手脚。在20世纪80年代和90年代，因油价低，利润薄，石油生产国把人员和投资都削减到了最低限度。许多制造钻探设备和收集地震资料的公司都关门了。现在，当石油公司想要增加产量时，它们找不到人员或所需的设备。

　　现在，更糟糕的是，新发现的石油往往在相对难以到达的地方，而且呈更加难以处理的形态。因为需要更多的工程师和复杂的设备来开采石油，炼油的成本增加了。但是，易采石油的末日还远不是鼓吹“峰值石油”的石油商们所忽悠的那样。加拿大粘稠的沥青砂中所含的石油可与沙特阿拉伯相比。最终，大学将培养出更多的地质学家，船厂将造出更多的近海石油平台，尽管要弥补20多年投资不足造成的空缺还需要一段很长的时间。

　　最大的障碍是政治性的。几乎所有的富油国，从厄瓜多尔到哈萨克斯坦，都力图在石油工业丰厚的利润中分得更多的份额。世界所面临的不是“峰值石油”，而是民族主义的顶峰。