WSJ(10/31) Why Oil May Not Stop at $100
但出席这一会议的石油输出国组织(OPEC，简称：欧佩克)两个成员国的石油部长却坚持说，原油供应量偏少并非目前最急需解决的问题。在纽约商品交易所周二的交易中，美国基准原油价格较周一创下的新纪录有所回落，收于每桶90.38美元，下跌3.15美元，跌幅3.4%。
卡塔尔和阿拉伯联合酋长国的石油部长称，导致油价自夏初以来跃升近40%的原因是，美元的持续疲弱、华尔街普遍存在的投机行为以及全球炼油行业遭遇了产能瓶颈。
卡塔尔石油部长阿提亚(Abdullah al-Attiyah)说，请不要将油价屡创历史新高归咎于产油国。我们已经被指责了50年了。他的话表达了主要产油国的普遍想法。
如果油价继续飙升，而石油业管理人士、消费者和政界人士又在试图相互推卸责任，那么这场有关油价上涨诱因的争论肯定会变得更加激烈。但今年能源大会上各种相互矛盾的有关油价飙升成因的理论让人们意识到，找出真正的原因是多么困难。
曾在沙特阿拉伯国有石油公司沙特阿美(Aramco)任职的石油咨询师胡赛尼(Sadad I. Al-Husseini)对世界石油前景的判断特别令人心惊。他说，主要石油生产国“虚报”了3,000亿桶石油储量。这些纸面上的储量难以精确计算、无法一探究竟，也无法实际开采。
胡赛尼说，中东地区的石油开采有很多是在成熟的储油带进行的，而波斯湾地区的大油田有41%已经枯竭。
他认为，由于众多油气田已进入开采的成熟期，全球的油气生产能力已很有限，产量将进入一个长达15年的停滞期。胡赛尼预计，全球原油日需求量每增加100万桶，由此加剧的原油供应短缺就将使油价再上涨12美元。目前的全球原油日需求量约为8,500万桶，比1999年时高了1,000万桶。
国际能源署(International Energy Agency)新任总干事田中伸男(Nobuo Tanaka)说，他认为全球的原油富余生产能力近期内不大可能有显著增长，这在一定程度上是因为有很多石油蕴藏量丰富的国家继续对外部投资者持回避态度。
田中伸男说，国际能源署认为，尽管油价已处于高位，但从2009年起石油市场供应紧张状况还将加剧，原因是新增加的原油生产能力低于现有油田减少的生产能力。
虽然国际能源署的分析师们坚持说，在2030年之前全球的石油需求有充足的资源保障，但田中伸男却表示，是否能有足够多的投资、足够数量的熟练工人以及足够的技术手段将石油资源“及时”开采出来就不敢保证了。
石油服务公司Schlumberger Ltd.的董事长兼首席执行长安德鲁•古尔德(Andrew Gould)也有同样的忧虑。他指出，目前开采的油田中有70%投产已超过30年。古尔德说，2003年以来全球原油日需求量增加的量大约相当于北海地区和墨西哥这世界两大原油供应地每天的石油产量。
古尔德在年度能源大会上表示，石油业自身应付不了原油需求量如此迅猛的增长。欧佩克成员国的石油产量目前占世界总产量的40%。但预计这一比例未来几年还会增加，因为墨西哥和俄罗斯等非欧佩克产油国的石油产量将出现下降。作为世界最大的产油国，沙特阿拉伯希望在未来10年中能大幅增加石油产量。
而面对即将突破每桶100美元的油价，欧佩克官员们不得不忙着为自己洗刷责任。担任欧佩克轮值主席的阿联酋石油部长哈姆利(Mohamed bin Dhaen Al Hamli)说，石油市场正日益被欧佩克无法控制的因素、地缘政治事件以及金融投资者日益增大的影响力所驱动。
他说，油价目前仍“远低于”1980年春创下的每桶101美元（经通货膨胀调整后）的历史最高水平，之前发生的1979年伊朗革命给石油市场造成极大震撼。卡塔尔石油部长阿提亚则指出，黄金价格也在直线上扬。他质问道：“为什么人们只关注石油却对黄金视而不见？”阿提亚随后又表示，他对人们将油价上涨归咎于欧佩克的做法已经“受够了”。
这两位石油部长都说，欧佩克在下月于沙特举行的成员国首脑会议上将不会正式讨论是否增加石油供应的问题。欧佩克上个月曾决定从11月1日起将日产量增加约50万桶。
美国能源部情报署(Energy Information Administration)高级官员盖伊•卡鲁索(Guy Caruso)不同意欧佩克所谓供应问题并非当务之急的说法。他说，展望来年，我们认为市场仍然需要更多的石油供应。卡鲁索认为，问题在于市场缺乏富余产能和富余库存等缓冲因素。他说：我们的库存相对较低且还在不断下降，炼油行业的原油需求难以得到满足。
Neil King Jr. / Guy Chazan
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Saudi Arabian Oil Co.
总部地点：沙特阿拉伯(Saudi Arabia)
Oil at $100 a barrel? That may not be the worst of it.
Several leading oil experts, gathered here yesterday for an annual energy conference, sketched a near-term future in which mounting global demand and shrinking supplies push oil prices well past the $100-a-barrel mark.
Consuming countries, they argued, will simply have to deal with the fact that new pockets of oil are getting far harder and more expensive to tap. That, combined with years of underinvestment by the industry, has led to a tapering off of new oil supplies that will continue for years, despite rising energy demand in Asia, the Middle East and some industrialized countries.
Yet on a day when U.S. benchmark oil prices retreated from Monday's record, closing down $3.15 a barrel, or 3.4%, to $90.38 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, two ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at the same gathering insisted that the immediate problem isn't too little oil.
Prices have jumped nearly 40% since early summer, the oil ministers of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates said, because of the slumping dollar, widespread Wall Street speculation and bottlenecks in the refining process.
'Please don't blame us' for record oil prices, said Abdullah al-Attiyah, Qatar's minister of oil, expressing a sentiment that is widely held among major oil-producing countries. 'You have blamed us for 50 years.'
The debate over what is driving the surge in oil prices is sure to get more spirited if prices continue to soar and oil executives, consumers and politicians seek to assign blame. But the feuding theories at this year's Oil & Money conference also show how hard it is to pinpoint a cause.
Sadad I. Al-Husseini, an oil consultant and former executive at Aramco, Saudi Arabia's national oil company, gave a particularly chilling assessment of the world's oil outlook. The major oil-producing nations, he said, are inflating their oil reserves by as much as 300 billion barrels. These amount to hypothetical reserves that are 'not delineated, not accessible and not available for production.'
A lot of production in the Middle East is from mature reservoirs, and the giant fields of the Persian Gulf region, he said, are 41% depleted.
Global oil and gas capacity is constrained by mature reservoirs and is facing a '15-year production plateau,' Mr. Husseini said. He predicted that supply shortages will continue to add $12 to the price of oil for every million barrels a day in additional demand. Global demand, now at some 85 million barrels a day, was on average 10 million barrels a day lower in 1999.
Nobuo Tanaka, the new executive director of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, which is funded by the world's leading industrialized consumer nations, said he sees little likelihood the world's spare capacity for oil production will increase notably in the near future, partly because so many oil-rich countries continue to shun outside investors.
'The IEA says that despite the high oil price, market tightness will increase from 2009, because new capacity additions won't keep up with reduced capacity from existing fields,' he said.
IEA analysts insist that a sufficient resource base exists to supply demand through 2030, but Mr. Tanaka said he isn't confident there will be enough investment, skilled workers and technology to actually get to that oil 'in a timely manner.'
Andrew Gould, the chairman and chief executive of Schlumberger Ltd., an oil-services company, expressed similar concerns, noting that 70% of the oil fields that now quench world demand are more than 30 years old. The growth in global demand since 2003, he said, has been roughly the equivalent of the daily output from two of the world's larger suppliers: the North Sea and Mexico.
'Our industry simply cannot cope with these kinds of increases,' Mr. Gould told the assembly. OPEC countries supply about 40% of world production. But that slice is expected to increase in coming years as output decreases in non-OPEC countries such as Mexico and Russia. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest single supplier, is looking to increase production substantially into the next decade.
But with oil prices now flirting with $100 a barrel, OPEC officials have been aggressive in batting aside talk that they are to blame. 'The market is increasingly driven by forces beyond OPEC's control, by geopolitical events and the growing influence of financial investors,' said Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamli, the United Arab Emirates' oil minister, who also serves as OPEC's president.
Mr. Hamli said prices still are 'far below' the all-time inflation-adjusted high of $101 a barrel, set in the spring of 1980 after the 1979 Iranian revolution shocked oil markets. His Qatari counterpart, Mr. al Attiyah, noted that gold prices also have been skyrocketing. 'Why are people concentrating on oil and closing their eyes on gold?' he asked, adding later that he is 'fed up' with people blaming OPEC for fluctuations in oil prices.
Both ministers said the cartel won't formally consider whether to increase supplies to the world market during a heads-of-state meeting in Saudi Arabia next month. The group agreed last month to add about 500,000 barrels a day to world production, effective Nov. 1.
A top official at the Energy Department disputed OPEC's claim that supply isn't an immediate challenge. 'We think the market still needs more barrels, as we look toward the next year or so,' said Guy Caruso, an administrator at the department's Energy Information Administration. 'The problem is we don't have cushions,' in terms of spare production capacity and spare crude stocks, he said. 'We have relatively low and declining inventories and a refining sector that's finding it hard to get the crude it needs.'
Neil King Jr. / Guy Chazan