汽油涨价了，ld不肯带偶去outlet-第1页

以下是引用magie在2004-5-14 18:09:39的发言：
我们实验室的消息灵通人士说是因为中国用油量持续增长, 导致全球石油供需平衡被打乱, 从而全球油价上升.
有这么回事么, 照这么说油价是肯定下不来了.

Not a key reason bah.

Oil Tops $40 as Supply Fears Persist --- Traders Doubt OPEC Help; Iraqi Exports Are Slowed With Attacks on Facilities

12 May 2004
The Wall Street Journal

The price of oil settled above $40 a barrel for the first time in 13 years as markets shrugged off a call by Saudi Arabia for OPEC to help meet surging world-wide demand by loosening limits on production.

In Iraq, attacks have again disrupted oil exports, underscoring questions about the country's ability to sustain output and fueling further unease about supplies amid a straining global market.

Crude-oil futures finished up $1.13 to settle at $40.06 in New York Mercantile Exchange trading. The run-up came despite the call by Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi earlier this week for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to ease limits on production by at least 1.5 million barrels per day. Already, OPEC members are pumping oil above their quotas to take advantage of higher prices.

Meanwhile, U.S. gasoline prices are expected to rise further, according to Energy Department numbers. Regular retail-gasoline prices are expected to peak in June at $2.03 a gallon, up substantially from the $1.82 peak price projected last month, according to the agency's Energy Information Administration.

In Iraq, oil shipments were expected to return to prewar levels by today. A pipeline attack Saturday cut Iraqi exports by 30%, the country's occupation oil minister said, removing some 600,000 barrels a day from world markets. While a small slice of global output, the reduction further strained global markets that are as stretched as they've been for more than a decade.

The bombing followed a bold maritime assault by unknown assailants against Iraq's two Persian Gulf terminals. That strike did little damage but could have crippled the nation's exports, underscoring the vulnerability of oil infrastructure in the heavily trafficked Persian Gulf.

Bureaucratic problems pose another challenge to Iraq's oil output. A senior Iraqi oil official said recent efforts to boost production beyond current levels have been slowed by political uncertainty and a lack of funding at the reconstituted Ministry of Oil as it struggles to identify priorities ahead of the U.S.-led coalition's planned handover of sovereignty this summer. Ambitious projects to drill new wells and refurbish older ones -- in an effort to raise production capacity -- haven't been executed as hoped, this official said.

"To maintain [production] in a sustainable capacity, we need a lot of work to be done," the official said.

Iraqi officials have complained for months about a lack of funding from the occupation. The U.S. has spent or earmarked billions of dollars in Iraqi oil proceeds and American-taxpayer funds for oil-field repairs. Almost all of that has been channeled through occupation-administered contracts, prompting Iraqi engineers to complain they have been deprived of final say over what work gets done.

Iraqi officials have called for discretionary funds to move quickly on top projects. A senior occupation official said coalition administrators recently transferred about $200 million in discretionary funding to the Ministry of Oil.

Political uncertainty surrounding the turnover of sovereignty this summer also has slowed oil-project planning. Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, the occupation oil minister, could be out of a job July 1, the scheduled date of the turnover. It is uncertain whether an interim government will have the mandate to make politically charged decisions about oil-field development and urgently needed foreign investment.

Iraqi oil officials say the nation is producing just over 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, about what it was managing before the war. Iraqi officials have set a production goal of three million barrels a day -- where they say the country's output capacity stood before the March 2003 invasion.

Iraqi production has been hobbled by looting, sabotage and disrepair since the U.S.-led invasion. Mr. Bahr al-Uloum told reporters the weekend pipeline attack in southern Iraq cut exports from southern fields to 1.1 million barrels of oil a day, from 1.7 million a day before the attack.

But the nation's southern oil fields, which account for more than two-thirds of Iraqi capacity, have undergone a remarkable turnaround since last summer, when Iraqi and U.S. engineers restarted significant production. Rising exports in the south offset much of the output lost in the north because of sabotage along a top export pipeline running to the Mediterranean.

Those attacks declined significantly after occupation authorities and the Iraqi Ministry of Oil tightened security, including hiring a foreign security contractor to train guards and fly aircraft surveillance missions along the line.

But Iraqi and American engineers still are struggling with repairs to restore the northern line to its prewar capacity of roughly 800,000 barrels a day. Recently, pumping rates have been erratic and haven't risen much above 200,000 barrels a day, according to Iraqi oil officials.

Southern Iraq had been relatively quiet compared with the insurgency-plagued central areas that resisted U.S. occupation from the beginning. That changed with the outbreak of the continuing revolt by southern militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr.