壳牌放弃65亿美元石化项目
Royal Dutch Shell has scrapped plans for a $6.5bn petrochemicals project with Qatar Petroleum, citing “the current economic climate prevailing in the energy industry”, the oil major said on Wednesday.
荷兰皇家壳牌(Royal Dutch Shell)周三表示,已经放弃与卡塔尔石油公司(Qatar Petroleum)合作开展一个价值65亿美元的石化项目的计划,原因是“能源行业当前的经济气候”。The Al Karaana project, an 80:20 joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Shell, would have produced 2m tonnes a year of petrochemicals products, largely intended for Asian markets.
卡塔尔石油公司与壳牌按照80:20出资比例建立的Al Karaana合资项目原本计划每年生产200万吨的石化产品,主要供应亚洲市场。The decision not to proceed — a significant move following the halving of oil prices since last summer — was taken “after a careful and thorough evaluation of commercial quotations” from engineering, procurement and construction bidders, Shell said.
壳牌表示,不再推进该项目的决定是在“对工程、采购和建筑投标人的商业报价进行审慎而全面的评估之后”做出的。该决定是自去年夏天以来油价下跌50%以后壳牌采取的一个重大举措。
These showed “high capital costs rendering it commercially unfeasible, particularly in the current economic climate prevailing in the energy industry.”
这些报价表明“高昂的资本成本让该项目在商业上变得不可行,尤其是在能源行业当前的经济气候下”。Crude oil prices have plunged by more than 50 per cent since mid-June, creating winners and losers.
原油价格自去年6月中旬以来下跌逾50%,既让一部分人受益,也令一部分人蒙受损失。Those who have suffered include producers and governments, whereas some companies stand to benefit from a fall in energy costs. This has encouraged analysts to liken the potential boost for the global economy to a huge programme of “quantitative easing”.
那些蒙受损失的包括生产商和各国政府,然而,有些公司却因能源成本下降而受益。这促使分析师将油价下跌对全球经济的潜在提振与庞大的“量化宽松”计划相提并论。For oil companies, the falling price has triggered industry-wide scrutiny of capital spending, with the so-called majors — the biggest groups with upstream and downstream operations — expected to cut billions of dollars from exploration and development projects in the coming year, deferring and even axing programmes.
对石油公司来说,油价下跌引发全行业评估资本支出,那些所谓的石油巨头(拥有上下游业务的大型集团)预计来年在勘探和开发项目中削减数十亿美元支出,延迟甚至放弃某些项目。Under pressure to improve returns following the first profit warning in its history last year, Shell had already embarked on an intense round of cost-cutting before the slide in international crude prices to below $50 a barrel, from more than $110 last summer.
壳牌去年发布了历史上首个盈利预警,在提高效益的压力下,该公司已经在国际油价从去年夏季的每桶逾110美元下跌至50美元之前大刀阔斧地实施了一轮削减成本的举措。By the end of the third quarter, the Anglo-Dutch major had announced asset disposals of $14bn under a belt-tightening programme initiated by new chief executive Ben van Beurden.
截止去年第三季度末,壳牌按照新任首席执行官范伯登(Ben van Beurden)提出的紧缩项目,宣布了140亿美元的资产处置措施。It has promised to pursue profits over production growth and aims to deliver $30bn to investors through dividends and share buybacks over 2014 and 2015. It said in October it was braced for a sustained price downturn and was now taking further action.
该公司承诺致力于盈利而非产量增长,目标是在2014年和2015年通过股息发放和股票回购向投资者提供300亿美元的回报。壳牌在去年10月表示,已经对油价持续下跌有所准备,正在采取进一步的行动。Al Karaana, which took its name from an ancient Qatari village, is an example of the kind of planned spending the oil majors will be paring back. The joint venture to develop a huge complex at Ras Laffan, agreed in December 2011, would have produced 2m tonnes a year of petrochemicals, the bulk of which would have come from a monoethylene glycol plant, the largest of its kind in the world.
以卡塔尔古代的一个村庄命名的Al Karaana项目,就是壳牌即将削减此类计划支出的一个例子。壳牌与卡塔尔石油公司在2011年12月同意在卡塔尔拉斯拉凡(Ras Laffan)联合建设一座大型综合性工厂,每年生产200万吨的石化产品,其中大部分产品来自一个全球最大的单乙二醇工厂。In March 2013 Fluor of the US won the major front-end engineering and design contract for the project. Feedstock for the plant would have come from natural gas projects in Qatar.
2013年3月,美国福陆公司(Fluor)赢得了该项目主要的前端工程和设计合同。按照计划,该工厂的原料将来自卡塔尔的天然气项目。Shell’s existing ventures with Qatar Petroleum, including Pearl GTL, the world’s biggest integrated gas-to-liquids plant, located at Ras Laffan, are unaffected.
壳牌与卡塔尔石油公司的现有合作项目未受影响,包括位于拉斯拉凡、世界上最大的一体化天然气合成油工厂Pearl GTL。Shares in Shell were down 2.3 per cent at £20.28 in afternoon London trading, following further falls in Brent crude to $46.
在伦敦下午盘交易时段,在布伦特油价进一步跌至46美元之后,壳牌股价下跌2.3%至20.28英镑。