美国计划通过政府出资缓解石油供应过剩测深仪

据世界石油4月18日报道，美国正在考虑通过政府出资，使美国石油生产商将原油储存起来，以缓解市场供过于求的局面。美国能源部已经起草了一项计划,旨在通过有效地将未开采的原油作为政府紧急储备的一部分，石油储量高达3.65亿桶。

受此消息影响，5月份西德克萨斯中质原油期货价格上涨约20美分，至每桶20.42美元。周三早些时候，原油期货价格18年来首次跌破20美元/桶。

联邦法律已经授权能源部留出多达10亿桶石油用于紧急情况，但没有规定这些原油的去向。这为在政府现有储量之外储存原油创造了一个合法的条件，甚至在一开始就阻止了石油的开采。在这种情况下，政府会购买封存在地下的石油，要求生产商推迟开采或交付。

这个将原油存储在开采地的计划将需要国会拨款数十亿美元，政府出价30亿美元购买战略储备石油，但竞标未达成。这样的协议可能是前所未有的，反映出政府正努力帮助国内钻探企业摆脱石油产量激增和需求锐减的困境。

包括伍德麦肯兹和IHS Markit专家在内的分析人士预计，储油设施将在夏季前被填满，甚至可能更早。一旦发生这种情况，没有地方存放原油的石油生产商将被迫停产，并解雇工人。

一些公司已经在闲置钻井平台，并将过剩的供应储存在铁路车厢里，而管道运营商则将原油输送到未被充分利用的储存地点。

邹勤 摘译自 世界石油

原文如下：

U.S. debates paying its producers to leave oil untapped during glut

The administration is considering paying U.S. oil producers to leave crude in the ground to help alleviate a glut that has caused prices to plummet and pushed some drillers into bankruptcy.

The Energy Department has drafted a plan to compensate companies for sitting on as much as 365 million barrels worth of oil reserves by effectively making that untapped crude part of the U.S. government’s emergency stockpile, said senior administration officials, who asked not to be identified describing deliberations prior to a decision and风铃 announcement.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for May rose about 20 cents to $20.42 a barrel on the news. Earlier Wednesday, crude futures settled below $20 a barrel for the first time in 18 years.

Federal law already gives the Energy Department authority to set aside as much as 1 billion barrels of oil for emergencies -- without dictating where they should go. That creates a legal opening for storing crude outside the government’s existing reserve and even blocking its extraction in the first place. In this case, the government would essentially buy the oil locked underground but ask producers to hold off on extracting or delivering it.

The keep-it-in-the-ground plan would require billions of dollars in appropriations from Congress -- and the administration just recently lost a bid in Congress to spend $3 billion buying oil for the government’s strategic reserve. A deal like this could be unprecedented and reflects a Trump administration push to help domestic drillers battered by a surge of oil production and a collapse of demand tied to the coronavirus.

Analysts, including experts at Wood Mackenzie and I变速机HS Markit, expect storage tanks to fill by summer, if not sooner. Whenever that happens, oil producers with no place to put their crude would be forced to halt production and lay off workers.

Some are already idling drilling rigs and stowing excess supplies in rail cars, while pipel气动马达ine operators are reversing flows to transport crude to underused storage sites.