石油黑金將回歸常態 世界更加安全
In 2007 I made a bet with a fellow Russian businessman. The price of oil, he told me, would never drop below $80 again. This was the consensus among oilmen at the time. And that, I thought, was the surest sign that the oil price would soon start falling.
I told my acquaintance that the oil price could easily go down to $40. What determines it, I said, is not supply, demand or the cost of production. Rather, what matters is the mere perception of a potential shortage.
我告訴那位朋友，油價可能輕易跌至40美元。我說，決定油價的不是供需關係或生產成本，關鍵因素反而是對潛在短缺的純粹感知。The price of oil stayed high only because people believed there was not enough of it to go around. But once people believe that, consumers start looking for an alternative while producers try to pump more of the stuff — and then prices fall.
油價維持高位，只是因爲人們相信石油不夠分配。但是，一旦人們相信了這一點，消費者就會開始尋找石油的替代品，石油生產商則會努力開採更多石油，然後，價格就會下跌。
I am not a professional oilman and my assumptions were based not on knowledge of geology or the rate of economic growth in China, but on the simple fact that humanity usually finds a way around any obstacle in its path.
我並非專業的石油商人，我的設想並非基於地質知識或中國的經濟增長率，而是基於一個簡單的事實，即人類在前進道路上遇到任何障礙，通常都會找到方法繞過去。While many of my colleagues in Russia and elsewhere are arguing about when the oil price may bounce back, I am convinced that we have entered a new period of low oil prices. It is like alchemy, but in reverse: black gold, a precious substance whose price was determined by its scarcity, has turned into a black, smelly liquid that makes wheels turn. It is not the first time this has happened. The price of oil was relatively stable until the 1970s brought the psychological shock of an embargo imposed by Saudi Arabia on the export of oil to America.
我在俄羅斯和其他地區的很多同行都在討論油價可能會在什麼時候反彈，我卻深信，我們已經進入一個低油價的全新時代。就像是把普通金屬轉化爲黃金的鍊金術一樣，但過程正好反過來：石油黑金--這種由稀缺程度決定價格的珍貴物質--已經變回了那種能讓車輪轉動的又黑又臭的液體。這並非石油第一次被打回原形。油價一直相對穩定，直到上世紀70年代沙特頒佈禁運令，禁止石油出口美國，帶來了心理衝擊。In 1975, the US started its petroleum strategic reserve, contributing to the perception that oil was scarce. Oil producers saw their main objective was to guard their oligopoly.
1975年，美國啓動石油戰略儲備，強化了石油是一種稀缺品的印象。石油生產商認爲自己的主要目標就是保衛其寡頭壟斷地位。沒人關心生產效率這類微不足道的小事——許可證的分配比這重要得多。
No one cared about such trifling matters as efficiency — the distribution of licences was far more important. A good lobbyist was worth more to an oil company than a good engineer. To deal with this challenge, developed countries started to invest in energy saving and new technologies, and by the early 1980s this started to yield ensuing fall in oil prices eventually sapped the Soviet Union of its economic lifeblood.
對一家石油公司來說，一名優秀的說客比出色的工程師更有用。爲了應對這個挑戰，發達國家開始投資於能源節約和新技術，到上世紀80年代初，這種投資開始產生成效。隨後油價下滑，最終破壞了蘇聯的經濟命脈。Rapid economic growth in China and India in the early 2000s changed the perception about the balance between demand for oil and its scarcity. And once again developed countries with high levels of entrepreneurial freedom set themselves to work on solving the bottleneck.
2000年代初，中國和印度經濟快速增長，改變了人們對石油需求及其稀缺性之間平衡的認知。與此同時，擁有較高創業自由度的發達國家再一次開始爲突破這一瓶頸而努力。There was no single solution, but everyone thought of something: biofuel, wind energy, oil sands, shale.
雖然沒有單一的解決方法，但每個人都想到了一些對策：生物能源、風能、油砂、頁岩。It was no accident that the countries that led the innovation were liberal market economies with strong property rights, while the countries that wished to thwart these efforts were resentful of competition and riddled with monopolists. They treated private property as a concession that could easily be taken away.
不出意外，引領這場革新的國家都是充分保障產權的自由市場經濟，而希望挫敗這些努力的國家都是憎惡競爭、壟斷者遍佈的國家。後一種國家把私有財產視爲一種很容易被拿走的特權。Political systems based on the distribution of rent demoralise people. Political regimes based on free competition motivate people. It is because of free initiative and competition that humanity can overcome bottlenecks.
建立在租金分配基礎上的政治制度使人民消沉，而建立在自由競爭基礎上的政治體制讓人民充滿動力。正是因爲自由創新和自由競爭，人類才得以突破一個個瓶頸。The reason America has led the way in the production of shale oil and gas is not that it has a lot of shale — many other countries have a similar geology. It is that America has a lot of economic freedom.
美國之所以能夠引領頁岩油和頁岩氣的生產，其原因不在於美國的頁岩資源特別豐富——其他很多國家都有類似的地質條件。真正的原因在於，美國擁有極大的經濟自由度。This is a precious resource that many other countries lack. Its government does not sell licences for onshore drilling. It lets people buy land, and promises that nobody can take away from you what is yours.
經濟自由度是一種寶貴的資源，也是其他很多國家所欠缺的。美國政府不出售陸上鑽井許可證，它允許人們購買土地，並承諾任何人都不能剝奪屬於你的東西。The dizzying oil prices of recent years were profoundly abnormal. The fall will turn oil production into a proper business where costs and efficiency matter more than lobbying power. This stands to make the world freer and safer, by reducing the power of illiberal regimes that thrive on oil rents.
最近幾年油價高得讓人頭暈目眩，這是極度反常的。油價下滑將使石油生產行業轉變爲一個正常行業，一個生產成本和效率比遊說能力更重要的行業。這能夠削減那些靠石油租金而繁榮的不自由政體的實力，讓世界變得更加自由和安全。Two years ago, I found myself in Manaus, a unique city in Brazil’s Amazonas, in the middle of the rainforest. In the late 19th century Manaus became one of the richest and most extravagant cities thanks to the rubber it had.
兩年前，我去了瑪瑙斯市(Manaus)，一個位於巴西亞馬遜州熱帶雨林之中的獨特城市。19世紀末，瑪瑙斯因爲擁有橡膠而步入全世界最富有、最繁盛的城市之列。It built a splendid Belle époque-style opera house out of Italian marble with vast domes and gilded balconies. But a few years later the seeds of the rubber tree were smuggled out of the Amazon and Brazil lost its monopoly.
該市用意大利大理石建造了一座“美好時代”（Belle époque，指歐洲19世紀末至一戰爆發前那段和平、繁榮的時期——譯者注）風格的富麗堂皇的歌劇院，擁有巨大圓頂和鍍金包廂。但是，幾年後橡Then the invention of artificial rubber finally buried the entire prosperity of this tropical Paris. Manaus fell into poverty, electricity generation became too expensive and the opera house went dark. It is a powerful lesson to the futility of suppressing competition.
膠樹的種子被私運出亞馬遜雨林，巴西失去了其壟斷地位。之後，人造橡膠的發明最終葬送了這座有“熱帶巴黎”之稱的城市的繁榮。瑪瑙斯陷入貧困，電力也變得過於昂貴，這座歌劇院陷入黑暗之中。瑪瑙斯的教訓充分證明，抑制競爭是徒勞無益的。The writer is an international businessman and chairman of LetterOne Group and Alfa Group Consortium
本文作者爲一名跨國商人，擔任LetterOne集團及阿爾法集團(Alfa Group)董事長
