全球油价创新高英语美文

黄飞老师

全球油价创新高英语美文

  美国人开车度假 全球油价创新高 Oil price rise fuels fears on inflation

  随着美国人驾车上路,开始一年一度的暑假,上周五国际油价涨至新的创纪录高位。

  International oil prices rose to a new record on Friday as US drivers took to the roads on their annual summer holiday.

  油价涨至每桶75.78美元,引发通胀抬头的担忧,这导致美国和欧洲股市下挫。

  The increase – to $75.78 a barrel – stoked fears that inflation could rise, leading share prices in the US and Europe lower

  分析师称,油价上升使美联储(Fed)和其它央行加息可能性增大,尤其在高油价产生的.压力没有立即下降迹象的情况下。

  Analysts said the rise made it more likely that the US Federal Reserve and other central banks would increase interest rates, especially as pressure from high oil prices showed no sign of weakening soon.

  伦敦曼氏金融(Man Financial)资深能源经纪人罗伯特·劳林(Robert Laughlin)表示:“人们在谈论(每桶)80美元的价位;坦率地说,这一价位可能很快就会达到。特别是如果未来两个月里墨西哥湾出现一次大飓风的话。”

  Robert Laughlin, senior energy broker at Man Financial in London, said: “People are talking about $80 [a barrel]; quite frankly that looks like it could be hit sooner rather than later. Particularly if we get a large hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico over the next two months.”

  美国是世界上最大的汽油消耗国,过去4周里,美国的汽油需求已跃升至每天960万桶。这使得人们担心,由于去年的飓风使美国炼油厂逾10%的产能关闭,目前各炼油厂仍然艰难应付这一局面,可能难以满足需求。

  Demand for petrol in the US, the world’s biggest consumer, has jumped to 9.6m barrels a day in the past four weeks. This has caused concern that refineries – still struggling after last year’s hurricanes shut down more than 10 per cent of US capacity – could struggle to keep up.

  炼油商目前在给工厂升级,以便在加工轻质低硫原油之外,也能加工重质高硫原油。目前重质高硫油的供应量在增多,而随着世界依赖的油田渐趋干涸,轻质低硫原油产量在萎缩。

  Refiners are updating their plants so that they can process heavy, sour crude oil, which is now increasingly in supply, as well as the light, sweet crude oil, whose volumes are dwindling as oil fields on which the world has come to rely run dry.

  德勤咨询(Deloitte Consulting)高级独立能源顾问约瑟夫·斯坦尼斯拉夫(Joseph Stanislaw)说:“人们的担忧与夏季有关。消费者仍在驾车并使用汽油,而目前汽油的主要原料轻质油供应却不充裕。”

  Joseph Stanislaw, senior independent energy adviser to Deloitte Consulting, said: “The fears are related to the summer time. Consumers are still driving and using petrol and the light crude oils that produce a higher proportion of petrol are not in abundant supply.”

  石油生产国开发重质原油油田的动作,比新炼油厂的增加速度更快,上周沙特阿拉伯的行动就说明了这一点。沙特降低了重质油的价格,同时提高了其轻质原油的价格。

  The move by oil producers to develop heavy oil fields more quickly than new refinery units are being added was illustrated by Saudi Arabia this week. It cut the price of its heavier oil and raised the price of its light oil.

  但目前油价高企也是人们的忧虑所导致。人们担心,在当前世界的应急石油供应缓冲余地十分小的情况下,地缘政治的紧张态势可能会中断石油供应。

  But high oil prices are also being caused by fears that geopolitical tensions could interrupt oil flows when the world has only a slim cushion of emergency supplies.