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ABERDEEN, Scotland — Even before Craig May, alongtime Chevron executive, moved to this NorthSea port city two summers ago, he knew that the oilwealth in Britain's waters was on the steepeningslope 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(jīng)知道，英國水域的石油財(cái)富已經(jīng)處在了數(shù)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 Aberdeentheir North Sea hub, Chevron had let its agingoffshore operations become inefficient. There was still plenty of oil and gas out there. But therising 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(shè)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(yè)務(wù)變得效率低下。那里仍然存儲著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(jīng)濟(jì)上說不再合理。

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

“我們那時候就認(rèn)識到，我們的結(jié)構(gòu)有問題，”梅說。他現(xiàn)在是該公司歐洲北部勘探與生產(chǎn)部門的負(fù)責(zé)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(dāng)時，石油的價(jià)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 someoperators shutting down aging platforms, May and Chevron are in a race against irrelevancy fortheir North Sea operations.

現(xiàn)在，隨著油價(jià)比一年前下跌了約40%，一些石油公司在關(guān)停日益老化的平臺。梅和雪佛龍?jiān)诒焙５臉I(yè)務(wù)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, isunlikely to provide any sort of relief to the North Sea industry by cutting production to propup 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 theNorth Sea, reducing their output.

石油輸出國組織(Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries，簡稱歐佩克)將于本周五在維也納碰頭。它不太可能通過削減產(chǎn)量的方式來支撐油價(jià)，給北海業(yè)務(wù)提供喘息的機(jī)會。相反，歐佩克——其中不包括英國或其他北海產(chǎn)油國——希望，持續(xù)的低油價(jià)能夠阻止新的投資進(jìn)入北海這樣的高成本地區(qū)，從而讓它們的產(chǎn)出減少。

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

早在去年夏天油價(jià)開始崩盤之前，梅就開始采取措施，削減雪佛龍?jiān)诒焙５倪\(yùn)營成本，并計(jì)劃采用新的技術(shù)——包括一個造價(jià)300萬美元的阿伯丁綜合作業(yè)中心——來努力提高二三十年前修建的近海油氣鉆井平臺的效率。

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

其中牽扯的，絕不僅限于一家公司的盈利能力。這些努力是對一片能源區(qū)域持續(xù)開采作業(yè)能力的測試。若是獲得改善，北海能夠持續(xù)給歐洲提供一個立足點(diǎn)，讓它不那么依賴于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 leadthe way for other oil companies around the world to coax continued life from aging offshoreenergy operations — wherever they are — and learn from some industry mistakes.

同樣關(guān)鍵的是，雪佛龍?jiān)诒焙�嘗試的技術(shù)，可能會為世界各地的其他石油公司指引方向，讓它們得以延續(xù)日益老化的近海能源業(yè)務(wù)——無論它們地處哪里——的生機(jī)，并從同行的錯誤中吸取經(jīng)驗(yàn)教訓(xùn)。

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

從某種意義上說，英國水域是全球石油行業(yè)的一個縮影。世界各地的石油生產(chǎn)成本都在上升，近海業(yè)務(wù)尤其如此，因此利潤遭到擠壓，進(jìn)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 fromshale in the United States and elsewhere, the world is likely to require a long-term, adequatesupply of undersea oil — if it can be extracted economically. Chevron, for one, has postponed abig Scottish deepwater project called Rosebank, where the North Sea gives way to the NorthAtlantic just northwest of the Shetland Islands, judging it not feasible under current industryeconomics.

盡管可再生能源與從美國等地的頁巖中開采油氣的陸上鉆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(yīng)——如果它能夠以經(jīng)濟(jì)可行的方式獲得的話。比如，雪佛龍推遲了位于蘇格蘭的大型深水項(xiàng)目羅斯班克(Rosebank)，因?yàn)楣�司認(rèn)為，在目前的行業(yè)經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況下，這個計(jì)劃是不可行的。羅斯班克位于北海和北大西洋的交界處，正好在設(shè)得蘭群島的西北方。

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 lowthousands, the management consulting firm Ernst & Young forecasts that as many as35,000 of the 375,000 jobs related to the oil industry in Britain could be lost over the nextfour years.

就像該地區(qū)的其他大型石油公司一樣，雪佛龍也采取了裁員等削減成本的方法。雖然迄今為止，油氣行業(yè)在北海地區(qū)總共裁減了小幾千人，但據(jù)管理咨詢公司安永(Ernst& Young)預(yù)測，英國與石油業(yè)有關(guān)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 currentlevel of oil prices,” Simon Henry, Royal Dutch Shell's chief financial officer, said recently whilediscussing the company's quarterly results.

“北海業(yè)務(wù)存亡問題的核心是，在目前油價(jià)水平上開采作業(yè)的直接成本，”荷蘭皇家殼牌公司(Royal DutchShell)的首席財(cái)務(wù)官西蒙·亨利(Simon Henry)近期在討論公司的季度業(yè)績時表示。

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

而在北海，沒有哪家企業(yè)是一座孤島。

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

這片地區(qū)是一個巨大的網(wǎng)絡(luò)，油田、管道及運(yùn)輸油氣的其他基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施彼此相連，屬于不同的公司。如果這個網(wǎng)絡(luò)上有一家公司關(guān)閉一個節(jié)點(diǎn)，那么其他公司可能就不得不關(guān)停自己的部分業(yè)務(wù)。

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

例如，雪佛龍有一塊名為厄斯金(Erskine)的油田，蒙受了數(shù)個月的生產(chǎn)損失，因?yàn)樗�出產(chǎn)的石油要流經(jīng)BG集團(tuán)(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(guān)停，不過近期又重新連接到網(wǎng)絡(luò)中。

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

“只要有一塊油田的一處基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施出問題，整個網(wǎng)絡(luò)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 lawsrequire the companies to safely and cleanly dismantle the platforms and underwater equipment,a process with considerable costs.

一旦油田開始關(guān)閉，相關(guān)公司也不能簡單棄用，而是要按照國際法的要求，安全、無污染地拆除鉆井平臺和水下設(shè)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 onNorth Sea decommissioning — spending the industry can hope to partly defer the longer it cansqueeze life from existing operations.

在未來十年里，整個行業(yè)預(yù)計(jì)會在退出北海業(yè)務(wù)上花費(fèi)150億英鎊(約合1400億元人民幣)左右�，F(xiàn)有業(yè)務(wù)持續(xù)得越久，該行業(yè)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 ofAberdeen that was discovered in 1970 and once produced about a half-million barrels a day. Bythe time Apache bought its portion from BP, output had dwindled to 41,000 barrels a day.

總部位于休斯頓的中等規(guī)模的石油公司阿帕奇(Apache)被認(rèn)為堪稱這方面的榜樣。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于北海，在阿伯丁東北140英里(約合225公里)處。福蒂斯是1970年發(fā)現(xiàn)的，曾經(jīng)能日產(chǎn)原油約50萬桶。到阿帕奇從BP手里買下油田的一部分時，其產(chǎn)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 innew 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(dān)任阿帕奇北海業(yè)務(wù)經(jīng)理的詹姆斯·L·豪斯(James L House)稱，通過投資新油井，以及增加發(fā)電機(jī)來減少停工期，公司將產(chǎn)量提高了20%，達(dá)每天約5萬桶。

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

“我們所有公司掌握的技術(shù)水平是一樣的，雇的員工的教育背景也類似，”他說。“關(guān)鍵是決策的制定和執(zhí)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 Rosebankproject could yet go ahead, May said.

雪佛龍公司的梅表示，他受到了公司恢復(fù)北海業(yè)務(wù)的種種行動的鼓舞。雪佛龍正在繼續(xù)開發(fā)一個名叫阿爾德(Alder)的新油田。據(jù)他介紹，龐大的羅斯班克項(xiàng)目仍可能推進(jìn)。

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

“在這里50年了，”他說。“我們想留下來。”