石油巨頭竭力保英國北海油田業務

ABERDEEN, Scotland — Even before Craig May, a longtime Chevron executive, moved to this North Sea port city two summers ago, he knew that the oil wealth in Britain's waters was on the steepening slope of a decadeslong decline.

蘇格蘭阿伯丁——克雷格·梅(Craig May)是雪佛龍公司(Chevron)的資深高管。即使在兩年前的夏天搬到北海的這座港口城市之前，他就已經知道，英國水域的石油財富已經處在了數十年來的下降過程中一個愈加陡峭的階段。

Along with other Big Oil players that make Aberdeen their North Sea hub, Chevron had let its aging offshore operations become inefficient. There was still plenty of oil and gas out there. But the rising expenses, May said, no longer justified the diminishing revenue from the undersea wells.

還有一些石油巨頭也把北海樞紐設在了阿伯丁，而它們和雪佛龍遇到了同樣的困難：日益老化的近海業務變得效率低下。那裏仍然存儲着大量的石油和天然氣。但梅表示，成本不斷攀升，海底油井的營收日益減少，從經濟上說不再合理。

“We recognized we weren't structured the right way,” said May, who now leads the company's exploration and production in northern Europe. “Cost always matters.”

“我們那時候就認識到，我們的結構有問題，”梅說。他現在是該公司歐洲北部勘探與生產部門的負責人。“成本一直都是重要因素。”

And that was when oil was selling for more than $100 a barrel.

當時，石油的價格還在每桶100美元以上。

Now, with oil's price per barrel down about 40 percent from a year ago, and with some operators shutting down aging platforms, May and Chevron are in a race against irrelevancy for their North Sea operations.

現在，隨着油價比一年前下跌了約40%，一些石油公司在關停日益老化的平臺。梅和雪佛龍在北海的業務可能會變得無足輕重，而他們正在與之賽跑。

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which meets on Friday in Vienna, is unlikely to provide any sort of relief to the North Sea industry by cutting production to prop up prices. Instead, OPEC — which does not include Britain or any other North Sea producer — hopes that a spell of low prices will discourage new investment in high-cost regions like the North Sea, reducing their output.

石油輸出國組織（Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries，簡稱歐佩克）將於本週五在維也納碰頭。它不太可能通過削減產量的方式來支撐油價，給北海業務提供喘息的機會。相反，歐佩克——其中不包括英國或其他北海產油國——希望，持續的低油價能夠阻止新的投資進入北海這樣的高成本地區，從而讓它們的產出減少。

Even before the price of oil began collapsing last summer, May was taking steps to trim Chevron's North Sea costs and planning new technologies — including a $3 million integrated operations center in Aberdeen — to wrest renewed efficiencies from 20- and 30-year-old offshore oil and gas rigs.

早在去年夏天油價開始崩盤之前，梅就開始採取措施，削減雪佛龍在北海的運營成本，並計劃採用新的技術——包括一個造價300萬美元的阿伯丁綜合作業中心——來努力提高二三十年前修建的近海油氣鑽井平臺的效率。

There is much more at stake than one company's profitability. The efforts are a test of the continued viability of an energy region that, if nurtured, could continue to give Europe a hedge against its reliance on oil and gas from Russia and the OPEC nations.

其中牽扯的，絕不僅限於一家公司的盈利能力。這些努力是對一片能源區域持續開採作業能力的測試。若是獲得改善，北海能夠持續給歐洲提供一個立足點，讓它不那麼依賴於俄羅斯和歐佩克的油氣。

Just as crucially, the techniques that Chevron is experimenting with in the North Sea could lead the way for other oil companies around the world to coax continued life from aging offshore energy operations — wherever they are — and learn from some industry mistakes.

同樣關鍵的是，雪佛龍在北海嘗試的技術，可能會爲世界各地的其他石油公司指引方向，讓它們得以延續日益老化的近海能源業務——無論它們地處哪裏——的生機，並從同行的錯誤中吸取經驗教訓。

In a sense, British waters are a microcosm of the global industry. Costs, especially for offshore operations, have risen across the globe, eating into profits and reducing incentives for new exploration.

從某種意義上說，英國水域是全球石油行業的一個縮影。世界各地的石油生產成本都在上升，近海業務尤其如此，因此利潤遭到擠壓，進行新勘探的動力也隨之減少。

Despite the global push toward renewable energy and onshore drilling of oil and gas from shale in the United States and elsewhere, the world is likely to require a long-term, adequate supply of undersea oil — if it can be extracted economically. Chevron, for one, has postponed a big Scottish deepwater project called Rosebank, where the North Sea gives way to the North Atlantic just northwest of the Shetland Islands, judging it not feasible under current industry economics.

儘管可再生能源與從美國等地的頁岩中開採油氣的陸上鑽探的趨勢獲得了全球性的推動，但我們可能還是需要長期而充足的海底石油供應——如果它能夠以經濟可行的方式獲得的話。比如，雪佛龍推遲了位於蘇格蘭的大型深水項目羅斯班克(Rosebank)，因爲公司認爲，在目前的行業經濟狀況下，這個計劃是不可行的。羅斯班克位於北海和北大西洋的交界處，正好在設得蘭羣島的西北方。

As other large oil companies in the region have, Chevron has turned to layoffs and other cost-cutting moves. While total industry job cuts in the North Sea region have so far been in the low thousands, the management consulting firm Ernst & Young forecasts that as many as 35,000 of the 375,000 jobs related to the oil industry in Britain could be lost over the next four years.

就像該地區的其他大型石油公司一樣，雪佛龍也採取了裁員等削減成本的方法。雖然迄今爲止，油氣行業在北海地區總共裁減了小几千人，但據管理諮詢公司安永(Ernst& Young)預測，英國與石油業有關的37.5萬個工作崗位中，可能有至多3.5萬個會在未來四年中遭到裁減。

“The issue in the North Sea is existential around the cash cost of operation at the current level of oil prices,” Simon Henry, Royal Dutch Shell's chief financial officer, said recently while discussing the company's quarterly results.

“北海業務存亡問題的核心是，在目前油價水平上開採作業的直接成本，”荷蘭皇家殼牌公司(Royal Dutch Shell)的首席財務官西蒙·亨利(Simon Henry)近期在討論公司的季度業績時表示。

And in the North Sea, no company is an island.

而在北海，沒有哪家企業是一座孤島。

The region is a vast web of interconnected fields and pipelines and other infrastructure, with different owners, that transport the oil and gas. If one company closes a node in this network, others might be forced to shut down portions of their own operations.

這片地區是一個巨大的網絡，油田、管道及運輸油氣的其他基礎設施彼此相連，屬於不同的公司。如果這個網絡上有一家公司關閉一個節點，那麼其他公司可能就不得不關停自己的部分業務。

Chevron, for example, lost production for several months from a field called Erskine because its oil flowed through a field operated by the BG Group. That field had been closed since October for an upgrade but recently came back online.

例如，雪佛龍有一塊名爲厄斯金(Erskine)的油田，蒙受了數個月的生產損失，因爲它出產的石油要流經BG集團(BG Group)的一塊油田。從去年10月開始，BP的那塊油田因升級改造而關停，不過近期又重新連接到網絡中。

“It takes only one field that has exposure to a piece of infrastructure to put the whole system in jeopardy,” said Derek Leith, an energy consultant at Ernst & Young in Aberdeen.

“只要有一塊油田的一處基礎設施出問題，整個網絡就會處境不妙，”安永駐阿伯丁的能源顧問德里克·利思(Derek Leith)表示。

Once fields start to shut down, the companies cannot simply abandon them. International laws require the companies to safely and cleanly dismantle the platforms and underwater equipment, a process with considerable costs.

一旦油田開始關閉，相關公司也不能簡單棄用，而是要按照國際法的要求，安全、無污染地拆除鑽井平臺和水下設備。這個過程需要投入大量成本。

The industry is projected to spend about 15 billion pounds ($23 billion) in the next decade on North Sea decommissioning — spending the industry can hope to partly defer the longer it can squeeze life from existing operations.

在未來十年裏，整個行業預計會在退出北海業務上花費150億英鎊（約合1400億元人民幣）左右。現有業務持續得越久，該行業就越有希望推遲部分開銷。

Apache, a midsize oil company based in Houston, is considered something of a model. In 2003, Apache acquired a portion of the Forties field, a vast North Sea plot 140 miles northeast of Aberdeen that was discovered in 1970 and once produced about a half-million barrels a day. By the time Apache bought its portion from BP, output had dwindled to 41,000 barrels a day.

總部位於休斯頓的中等規模的石油公司阿帕奇(Apache)被認爲堪稱這方面的榜樣。2003年，該公司收購了福蒂斯油田(Forties)的一部分。這片廣闊的油田也位於北海，在阿伯丁東北140英里（約合225公里）處。福蒂斯是1970年發現的，曾經能日產原油約50萬桶。到阿帕奇從BP手裏買下油田的一部分時，其產量已跌至每天4.1萬桶。

But Apache has raised production 20 percent, to about 50,000 barrels a day, by investing in new wells and installing more electrical generators to reduce downtime, according to James L. House, the company's North Sea manager until this month.

不過，在本月之前一直擔任阿帕奇北海業務經理的詹姆斯·L·豪斯(James L House)稱，通過投資新油井，以及增加發電機來減少停工期，公司將產量提高了20%，達每天約5萬桶。

“We all have access to the same level of technology and hire people with similar educational backgrounds,” he said. “It is how decisions are made and how they are executed.”

“我們所有公司掌握的技術水平是一樣的，僱的員工的教育背景也類似，”他說。“關鍵是決策的制定和執行。”

At Chevron, May says he is encouraged by his company's efforts to reclaim the North Sea. Chevron is continuing with development of a new field called Alder. And the giant Rosebank project could yet go ahead, May said.

雪佛龍公司的梅表示，他受到了公司恢復北海業務的種種行動的鼓舞。雪佛龍正在繼續開發一個名叫阿爾德(Alder)的新油田。據他介紹，龐大的羅斯班克項目仍可能推進。

“We have been here for 50 years,” he said. “We want to stay.”

“在這裏50年了，”他說。“我們想留下來。”