[翻译]国家石油公司：石油的黑暗秘密（National oil companies：Oil's dark secret）

Aug 10th 2006 | CARACAS AND LONDON
From The Economist print edition


    Most of the world's oil reserves are in the hands of state-run companies, many of which are run badly

  世界上大部分的石油储备都掌握在国有公司的手中，而这些公司大多数经营不善。

 

     EXXON MOBIL is the world's most valuable listed company, with a market capitalisation of $412 billion.But if you compare oil companies by how much they have left in the ground, the American giant ranks a lowly fourteenth. All 13 of the oil firms that outshadow it are national oil companies (NOCs): partially orwholly state-owned firms through which governments retain the profits from oil production. Because these national champions control as much as 90% of the world's oil and gas, they can do far more than the likes of Exxon to assuage the current worries about supply and to influence the accompanying record prices. But like most state-owned firms, they are prone to over-staffing, underinvestment, political interference and corruption. 

      埃克森美孚公司是世界上最值钱的上市公司，其市值达到4120亿美元。但如果将它和其他石油公司的储备量进行对比，那么这个美国巨头也只能排在第14名。排在它之前的全部13家石油公司都是国家石油公司（NOC）：部分或者全部归国家所有，并且国家通过这些公司来从石油生产中获得利益。由于这些国有巨头们控制了世界上大约90％的石油和天然气，因此它们能比埃克森公司更易于缓和目前对石油供应的担心，并影响相对应的股价。但是和大多数国有公司一样，它们也都容易犯各种毛病：人员过剩，投资不善，政治干涉以及腐败。

    Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), one of the biggest (see chart), provides a cautionary tale of how bad they can be. Venezuela has exported oil since the 16th century, when the mother of the Hapsburg emperor, Charles V, had some shipped to Spain to treat his crippling gout. Big multinationals, such as Royal Dutch Shell, set up shop in Venezuela almost a century ago. By the 1930s the country was the world's second-biggest oil producer. Today it remains one of the main sources of American oil imports. There is also huge potential to expand production: if you include its near-endless supply of treacly “ultraheavy” oil, Venezuela has the world's biggest reserves.

 

      委内瑞拉国家石油公司，世界上最大的石油公司之一（如图），为我们展示了一个值得让人警惕的教训。委内瑞拉从16世纪就开始出口石油，当时哈布斯堡王朝的国王查尔斯五世从委内瑞拉运了一些石油来治疗他的关节痛。而象壳牌公司这样的大型的跨国公司在一个世纪前就在委内瑞拉建立了分公司。到了1930年，委内瑞拉成为世界第二大石油生产国。今天它仍然是美国石油进口的一个主要来源国。此外，它还有很大的潜力来扩大产量：如果把它拥有的几乎无穷的重油包括在内，委内瑞拉就是世界上最大的石油储备国。

    Like many developing countries, Venezuela nationalised its oil industry in the 1970s. But its politicians were mindful of the extravagant mess that Pemex, Latin America's biggest NOC at the time, had made of Mexico's oilfields since the 1930s. So the enezuelans devised a structure to minimise the disruption. Former foreign

concessions became free-standing divisions of PDVSA, with many of their existing managers left in place.

 

  
     和许多发展中国家一样，委内瑞拉在20世纪70年代对其石油工业实行了国有化。但委内瑞拉的政客们还对从20世纪30年代以来发生在墨西哥Pemex(当时拉丁美洲最大的国有石油公司)的挥霍无度的混乱状况忧心忡忡。因此委内瑞拉就建立一种结构来使公司崩溃的可能性达到最小。以前的外国特权公司变成了PDVSA的独立分支机构，并且这些公司的许多管理人员也都留任原职。

    From these sensible beginnings, PDVSA developed a reputation for professionalism and competence, matched by few other NOCs. The company was thought to be relatively free from the corruption and cronyism that had spread through Venezuela, fuelled by oil wealth. It was certainly efficient, producing as much oil as Pemex did with a third of the staff.

 

    由于有了这样良好的开端，PDVSA获得了专业性和竞争力强的美名，而这很少有其他的国有公司能与之媲美的。这家公司也被认为会远离腐败和拉帮结派这些委内瑞拉国内常见的问题，一心追求石油财富。它的确是高效率的，它只用了1／3的员工就可以生产出和Pemex一样产量的石油。

    In the 1990s the Venezuelan oil company embarked on a scheme to raise output to 6.5m barrels per day (b/d). This would be done by increasing its own production and farming out marginal fields to foreign firms. The idea, says Luis Giusti, who ran PDVSA from 1994 to 1999, was to make use of multinationals' technology and capital without surrendering the most lucrative opportunities to them.

    
    20世纪90年代委内瑞拉石油公司着手实施一项规划来使其日产量达到650万桶。这个目标可以通过增加它自己的产量和租借边缘油田给外国公司来实现。Luis Giusti（从1994年到1999年掌管这着PDVSA）说，这个计划使为了利用跨国公司的技术和资本而又不将最有利益的机会拱手让给对手。

    By 1998 some 36 foreign firms had set up shop and were rapidly expanding their output. PDVSA, meanwhile, had already reached 2.9m b/d and was seeking the government's blessing to invest more to increase its production apacity. But royalties were falling along with the oil price. With an election looming, the government slashed the company's investment budget instead. Output promptly started to fall and has never recovered.

     截至到1998年已经有36家外国公司在委内瑞拉建立了分公司并且迅速地扩大它们的产量。同时，PDVSA的日产量也已经达到了290万桶，并且它还在寻求政府的允许以便增加投资来增加它的生产能力。但当局却屈服在油价的压力下。考虑到选举的临近，政府就大幅裁减了公司的投资预算。公司的生产随即开始下降并且再也没有恢复过来。

    Partly because of geology and partly because of their age, Venezuela's fields require a lot of maintenance. The oil they produce is more viscous and acidic than the norm, and so harder to handle. Less than a tenth of the fields simply spout oil thanks to the natural pressure of the reservoir. Keeping the remainder flowing requires constant injections of water or gas. Even so, their output declines at roughly twice the pace of oilfields in the

North Sea. Venezuela has to add 400,000 b/d of new annual production capacity just to keep output stable, according to Mazhar al-Shereidah, an academic.

   也许是由于其地质的缘故，又或许是由于油田的产生年代的问题，委内瑞拉的油田需要进行大量的维护工作。它们产出的石油比正常的石油更有粘性和酸性，而且很难进行提炼。由于储油区的自然压力的原因，只有不到1／10的油田能够喷出石油。要让其他的石油流出来就需要不间断地往里面注水或者天然气。即使这样，它们的产量也在急剧下降，而且下降的速度大约是北海的油田的两倍。据经济学家Mazhar al-Shereidah介绍，为了保持产量的稳定，委内瑞拉不得不增加400000桶／天的年产量。 

    That is even more expensive than it sounds, because each well produces only a small amount: perhaps 180 b/d, compared with as much as 7,000 b/d from some Persian Gulf wells. It takes Venezuela ten times more wells than Saudi Arabia to produce a third of the oil. No wonder that at the height of its expansion in 1997, PDVSA was investing $5.4 billion, according to Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy.

    而这实际上比它听起来要昂贵的多，因为每个油井只能产很小一部分数量的石油：大约180桶／天，而与之相比，波斯湾的油井的日产量为7000桶／天。这就意味这委内瑞拉用10倍于沙特阿拉伯的油井却只产出它1／3的石油。一个名为Mackenzie的顾问介绍，这就不难理解为何1997年PDVSA在其扩张最迅速的时候投资了54亿美元了。

    But when President Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, he started squeezing even more money out of the firm. By 2000 investment had fallen to $2.5 billion. Mr Chávez accused PDVSA of hiding its profits from the government through deceptive accounting. He also questioned the firm's expansion plans and overseas acquisitions. Above all, he decried its relative autonomy and appointed a number of hostile bosses to impose his authority.

 
   但是当查韦斯总统在1999年掌权以后，他就开始从这家公司榨取更多的钱。到了2000年投资已经下降到25亿美元。查韦斯指责PDVSA通过虚假会计向政府隐瞒了它的收益。他还质疑这家公司的扩张计划和海外投资。总之，他责难这家公司的相对自治性并且向这家公司委派了很多心腹来加强他的权威。

    PDVSA's management, naturally, resented this. They joined a general strike in December 2002, along with half of the firm's 40,000 employees. Most of the skilled staff, including engineers and technicians, stopped work for two months. Since—like patients in intensive care—many of PDVSA's wells require constant monitoring and treatment, says Mr al-Shereidah, the strike killed lots of them. Analysts estimated that Venezuela lost as much as 400,000 b/d of production capacity for ever, not to mention

billions of dollars in revenue.

    当然，这使PDVSA的管理层十分愤恨。在2002年12月，他们和公司的20000名雇员一起参加了一次罢工游行。大部分技术员工（包括工程师和技术员）都停止工作两个月。Mr al-Shereidah说，由于就象特护的病人一样，PDVSA的油井需要持续的监控和维护，因此这次的罢工使很多油井荒废了。分析师估计委内瑞拉永久性地失去了大约400000桶／天的产能，更别提失去的数以十亿计的收益了。

Sacking the lot 

 

开除众人

    But the worst was still to come. Mr Chávez denounced the strikers as saboteurs and sacked them all. The toll was highest among skilled workers: two-thirds of managers and technical staff went. At a stroke, PDVSA lost almost all of its most experienced and best-qualified employees, with an irreplaceable understanding of the idiosyncrasies of its wells and fields.

    但最糟糕的事情还是发生了。查韦斯宣称罢工者是阴谋破坏者并且解雇了他们。这在熟练的工人中比例最高：2／3的管理者和技术骨干离开了。一下子，PDVSA就失去了它几乎所有最有经验和最优秀的雇员，而这些人对公司拥有的油井和油田的特性的了解是无法代替的。

    Critics say that the government restaffed the firm with incompetent cronies and placemen. Contractors whisper that it is having trouble spending even its reduced investment budget. Bids take months longer than necessary to complete, one contractor complains, because the procurement staff cannot get their technical specifications straight. Others point to an increase in fatal accidents and fires at PDVSA's refineries as proof that its workers are no longer up to snuff.

   

      批判者指责政府重新雇佣的人员都是些无能的废物。承包商也私下抱怨即使它不断减少投资预算也难以用完。一个承包商抱怨，由于人采购人员不同让他们的技术说明通过，因此投标的项目也花费了更长的时间才能完成。其他人也指出PDVSA的精炼厂的重大事故和火灾的增加也证明了它的员工不再是符合标准的了。
     

    Staffing has certainly become more political. Mr Chávez's cousin, Asdrubal, runs the firm's shipping arm.The president's brother, Adan, helps to co-ordinate the company's subsidised oil sales around the Caribbean as ambassador to Cuba. Those who signed a petition advocating a recall election for Mr Chávez complain that they cannot get jobs at PDVSA or its contractors.

    公司职员的委派也自然变成政治性的了。查韦斯的堂兄，Asdrubal,掌管公司的航运部。总统的弟弟，Adan,作为驻古巴大使负责协调加勒比海区域的援助性石油交易。那些签署了一份要求重新选举总统的请愿书的人们抱怨他们不能够从PDVSA或者它的承包商那获得工作机会。

    Politics has begun to intrude into the firm's strategy, too. Mr Chávez wants PDVSA to do less business in the United States and more in Latin America. In the name of regional integration, he is pushing for an expensive natural-gas pipeline from Venezuela to Brazil, which would “bring gas that does not exist to markets that do not exist”, in Mr Giusti's view. In theory, the hugoducto, as the pipeline is sarcastically known, will be a money-making venture, but Mr Chávez has also dragooned the company into all manner of charitable works. He insists that the firm spend a tenth of its investment budget on social programmes, and has pledged its help, in the form both of cheap oil and technological assistance, to allies from Argentina to the Bahamas.

    政治也开始侵入公司的战略方面了。查韦斯想让PDVSA减少和美国的生意而把更多精力放到拉丁美洲。在名为“区域整合”的计划下，他正在推动从委内瑞拉铺设一条昂贵的天然气管道到巴西。而在Giusti先生看来，这只不过“将本不存在的天然气带到本不存在的市场“。讽刺的是，从理论上说，这条名为“hugoducto”的管道将会是一次赚钱的冒险行为，但查韦斯先生还强制要求这家公司开展各种形式的慈善事业。他要求公司将其1／10的投资预算用于社会活动，并且保证尽力用便宜的石油和技术支持来和阿根廷以及巴哈马结盟。

    Clearly, Venezuela's oil company no longer operates at arm's length from the government. Its head, Rafael Ramírez, is also the Minister of Energy and Oil. “The president tells PDVSA to commit suicide, and he says, ‘Yes sir!'” gripes Elie Habalian, a former Venezuelan representative at OPEC, with a mock salute.

    很明显，委内瑞拉的石油公司不再是独立于政府运作了。它的主管者Rafael Ramírez也是能源和石油部的部长。Elie Habalian，前委内瑞拉驻OPEC的代表用一个嘲弄的敬礼姿势说：“总统告诉PDVSA去自杀，然后他说‘是，长官！‘”。

    The company is also becoming more secretive. It has de-registered its refining subsidiary, Citgo, at America's Securities and Exchange Commission, and so no longer files any public reports to the organisation. In Venezuela, the Ministry of Energy and Oil has only just released the 2003 edition of its annual statistical compendium on the company's performance. Its finances are certainly getting murkier: it now transfers much of its earnings directly to a development fund controlled by Mr Chávez, rather than sending them all to the central bank as it used to.

    这家公司也变得更加隐秘了。它已经注销了其在美国安全与交换佣金（美国管理营业和公共销售安全的部门）得精炼子公司Citgo，并且不再向外界公布任何公司相关得报告。在委内瑞拉，能源和石油部也只就公司的运行情况发布了其2003年度的统计报告。它的经济状况毫无疑问是灰暗的：它现在更多地是把其收益直接转入一个由查韦斯先生控制的发展基金，而不是象以前那样将其存入中央银行。

    Despite these worrying trends, the government claims that PDVSA has fully recovered from the strike and sackings, and is now producing more than it did beforehand. Officially, it is still planning to raise output to almost 4m b/d by 2012. But observers scoff at such notions. The company can no longer maintain its own fields, let alone complete the many new projects it is pursuing, says Diego González,who used to work for its gas division. Wood Mackenzie estimates that output slumped to less than 1.2m b/d in 2003. It subsequently recovered a bit, to 1.6m b/d, but is now falling again.

    尽管存在这些令人担心的趋势，政府却声称PDVSA已经从罢工和裁员的风波中完全恢复过来了，并且其产量比以前有了更大的提高。官方消息称，计划到2012年将其日产量提高到400万桶／天。但是观察家对这种说法嗤之以鼻。以前在其天然气子公司工作的Diego González说，这家公司已经不能够维护它自己的油田了，更别提去完成它计划实现的那些新项目了。Wood Mackenzie估计在2003年它的日产量已经下降到了120万桶／天。接下来几年它恢复了一些，达到了160万桶／天，但现在又在下降了。

    These failings have not stopped Mr Chávez from forcing most foreign oil firms in Venezuela to go into partnership with its national champion. It is now running the resulting joint ventures—presumably no better than it runs its original fields. Other countries go further: Saudi Aramco, for one, has a monopoly on oil production in Saudi Arabia. PFC Energy, a consultancy, calculates that 77% of the world's oil and gas is found in countries whose production is controlled by state-owned oil firms and their partners.

    这些失败并不能够阻止查韦斯先生来强迫在委内瑞拉的大多数外国石油公司和它的石油寡头进行合作。它现在经营了许多合资公司－－大概并不会比它原先经营的油田好到哪去。其他的国家则更进一步：例如，沙特石油公司在沙特阿拉伯拥有了石油生产的垄断地位。PFC Energy公司（一家顾问公司）估算世界上77％的石油和天然气的生产都掌握在这些国家的国有石油公司和合作伙伴手中。

 

No entry

禁止进入

   The NOCs will gradually become even more dominant as oil production dwindles in areas which are open to all comers, such as the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. New oil is most likely to be found in the NOCs' territory, precisely because it is largely out of bounds to multinationals such as Exxon and BP, and so has not yet been thoroughly raked over. In the future, therefore, oil production will be even more concentrated in the hands of the national firms of Russia and the Persian Gulf.

   随着象北海和墨西哥湾那样对所有开发商都公开的区域的石油生产的减少，国有石油公司将逐渐更加占据主导地位。由于远离象埃克森美孚公司这样的跨国公司，新的油田最有可能在国有石油公司的领土上被发现，因为这些地方还没有被完全开发。因此，未来的石油生产将会更加集中在俄罗斯金和波斯湾的国有石油公司手中。

   Happily, not all NOCs are as badly run as PDVSA. But their problems are similar, if not as severe. Many suffer from government meddling of one sort or another. Legal requirements to hire a certain number of locals have left the state firms of several Persian Gulf emirates hopelessly over-staffed. Russia uses its NOCs, Gazprom and Rosneft, as instruments of foreign policy. The governments of China and India, among others, oblige their state firms to sell petrol below the international price at the pump, even though they have to buy much of it on the open market. Bolivia, meanwhile, cannot decide whether it wants an NOC at all. It has opened its oil industry to foreign investment and then nationalised it no fewer than three times.

   令人欣慰的是，并不是所有的国有石油公司都象PDVSA那样运营糟糕。但尽管没有它那么糟糕，但也同样面临相似的问题。很多公司都受到政府这样或者那样的干涉。法律规定雇佣一定数量的当地人让一些波斯湾酋长国的国有公司陷入令人绝望的人员过剩。俄罗斯利用它的国有公司Gazprom 和Rosneft来作为其外交政策的手段。即使在必须从国外市场上购买石油的情况下，中国和印度政府也强制要求他们的国有公司在加油站以低于国际油价的价格出售石油。同时，玻利维亚完全还不能确定它是否需要国有石油公司。它已经象外国投资者开发了它的石油工业，但又至少对其了三次国有化。

    A lack of openness is common. Saudi Aramco has not released enough data to quash a theory that its oil reserves are not nearly as large as it contends, and that its output may have peaked. Earlier this year a report in Petroleum Intelligence Weekly suggested that Kuwait's state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) was not providing a full picture of how much oil it had. Even members of Kuwait's parliament complain that they do not know the true level of the country's reserves.

    国有公司大多数都缺乏公开度。有一种理论认为沙特石油公司的实际石油储备量并没有其声称的那样多，而且它的产量已经达到了顶峰，但是沙特石油公司未能提供足够的数据来反驳这理论。今天早些时候<<美国石化信息周刊>>上发表了一篇文章指出科威特的国营科威特石油公司（KPC）并没有提供其石油储备量的真实情况。即使是科威特的议员也抱怨他们对国家石油储备的真实水平不知情。

    Underinvestment is the most widespread problem of all. Indonesia has become a net importer of oil, despite big reserves, thanks to the failure of state-run Pertamina to develop new fields. The fact that NOCs are sitting on the vast majority of the world's oil but pumping only about half of global output suggests a systematic failure to invest. Any government that relies on oil in general, and a state-run oil firm in particular, for the majority of its income, is likely to skimp on investment when the oil price falls, because it is more politically palatable to slash drilling programmes and seismic surveys than civil servants' salaries and hospital budgets.

     投资不善是国有公司最普遍的问题。印度尼西亚尽管拥有巨大的石油储备量，但由于印尼国营石油公司在开发新油田方面的失败，它已经成为一个石油进口枢纽了。国有石油公司坐拥着世界上大部分的石油却只开采出全球产量的一半这个事实表明他们存在投资方面的系统性失误。任何依赖石油的政府，尤其是一个国有石油公司，在石油价格下跌的时候都会倾向于缩减投资，因为相对于国内工人的薪水和医院预算来说，大幅削减钻探项目和地质调查在政治上更有利益。

Failed ambitions

失败的雄心

 

    For all these reasons, nationalisation has failed to live up to expectations almost everywhere. Iran, which has more oil and gas than all other countries save Saudi Arabia and Russia, pumps less today than it did in 1979, when the new Islamic government threw foreigners out. The current expansion of Russia's NOCs is proving equally ill fated: costs have risen and output has grown more slowly at Yuganskneftegaz, the former production arm of Yukos, a Russian oil company, since its takeover by state-controlled Rosneft, according to Andrei Illarionov, a former adviser to the Russian government. Over the past 20 years, he points out, income per head has grown in countries with private oil industries, but has shrunk in those

with nationalised ones.

 

    由于各种原因，国有化在各个国家都让人失望。伊朗，除了沙特阿拉伯和俄罗斯以外石油和天然气储备量最多的国家，当新的伊斯兰政府把外国人都赶出伊朗后，现在的产油量比它1979的产量还要低。现在俄罗斯的国家石油公司的扩张也面临窘境：据前俄罗斯政府的一名顾问Andrei Illarionov称，自从俄罗斯国有石油公司控制了尤科斯公司以后，尤甘斯克公司（前尤科斯公司的生产部门）成本在不断上升而产量增长却十分缓慢。他指出，过去20年里，私营石油企业的人均收入在不断增加，而在那些国有公司里却不断下降。

    Saad Rahim, of PFC Energy, argues that weak institutions lie at the root of this disappointing performance. Most countries with national firms used their oil wealth to develop the authority of the state, rather than the other way around. So NOCs sprang up before their countries had institutions strong enough to regulate them, or to manage the money they generate—a recipe for inefficiency and corruption.

    PFC能源公司的Saad Rahim认为国有公司这种让人失望的表现的根源在于其薄弱组织结构。大部分国家的国有公司都是利用石油财富来巩固国家的权威，而不是用于其他方面。所以在国家有足够强大的机构来约束它们或者来控制它们创造的财富之前，它们可以快速地发展。而这正是低效能和滋生腐败的温床。

      These feeble governments, in turn, look to NOCs to perform tasks that would normally fall to the bureaucracy. Many oil-rich states rely on them to bankroll their budgets, rather than bothering to collect any tax. They also depend on them to do a lot of the spending: hence the tendency to draft state oil firms into distributing subsidies and providing social services. In the worst cases interference becomes a

surrogate for economic growth, as governments demand they build uneconomic facilities and hire unneeded workers.

     

    反过来，这些无能的政府也希望这些国有公司能够完成官僚机构通常会失败的一些任务。许多石油富国不想着如何去收税，而是都依赖这些公司来为它们的预算提供资金。政府也依赖这些公司来为其支出买单：因此越来越趋向于将国有石油公司分解成分散式的子公司并为社会提供服务。由于政府命令它们建设不经济的设施并且雇佣毫无用处的员工，因此在最坏的情况下干涉就变成了经济增长的替代品，

    No wonder then that Statoil, Norway's NOC, is generally thought to be the best of the lot. Norway, after all, was a rich, efficiently administered country long before Statoil produced its first drop of oil. It had plenty of educated citizens to help staff and regulate the company, a free press, well-funded police and impartial courts to guard against corruption. Norway also had demanding voters to limit waste and inefficiency. Similarly, the state-run oil firms of Malaysia and Brazil, which had relatively strong governments and diversified economies before they found oil, do better than most.

    毫无疑问，挪威的国家石油公司，Statoil是被大家普遍认为是最好的国有公司了。毕竟在Statoil生产它第一桶石油之前，挪威就已经是一个富有，高效率管理的国家了。它拥有足够多的高素质国民来为其工作和管理公司，此外，还有一个自由的媒体环境，收入颇丰的警察和公正的法庭来防止腐败的发生。挪威也要求选民减少浪费和低效。想类似的，马来西亚和巴西有着强大的政府以及多样化的经济，因此其国营石油公司也比其他大多数国有公司要好。

    But institutions are not everything. After all, points out Valérie Marcel, author of a comparative study of five NOCs, Saudi Aramco has prospered since its nationalisation, despite the many failings of the Saudi government. In part, she argues, that is because it was taken over gradually and amicably. Saudi Arabia bought the company from its foreign owners over the course of seven years, helping to preserve institutional memory and an efficient corporate culture. It still keeps a few foreigners on the board. By contrast, Sonatrach took over foreign oil firms' assets in Algeria much more abruptly and acrimoniously, following a long and bitterly fought war of independence.

    但是，组织结构并意味着一切。对五家国有石油公司进行了比较性研究的作者Valérie Marcel指出，毕竟，尽管沙特政府存在许多缺点，但沙特阿拉伯石油公司自从它国有化以来就一直发展良好。她认为，部分原因是由于它是逐渐地并且以一种友好的方式把公司接管过来的。沙特用7年时间从其外国所有者手中买下这家公司，这使得它得以保存其组织结构和高效的企业文化。它还在公司董事会保留了一些外国人。相反地，阿尔及利亚的Sonatrach公司则以一种更加鲁莽和毒辣的方式夺取了外国石油公司的财产，这就导致了它接下来经历了一段漫长而痛苦的独立战争。 

    Moreover, Saudi Arabia has remained remarkably stable since nationalisation. The crown has changed hands only twice in the past 30 years; the same is true of the oil ministry. Political stability, in turn, has led to consistent policymaking. The government of Saudi Arabia has stuck to the same broad strategy for decades. It wants Aramco to maintain its position as the world's biggest producer and to use the resulting pricing power to ensure that the oil price stays high enough to keep the country solvent—but not so high as to turn consumers off oil altogether. That guidance has allowed Aramco to draw up longterm investment plans and to raise the capital to implement them.

      更值得称道的是，沙特阿拉伯石油公司自从国有化以来一直保持了显著的稳定性。在30年里公司主管只易手两次；同样的情况也发生在石油部。反过来，政治稳定也确保了它政策制定的一致性。沙特政府已经连续几十年坚持着一致的广泛性战略。它想让Aramco公司维持住它作为世界上最大的石油生产商的地位，并且利用相应的价格手段来确保石油价格保持在足够高的价位以使国家有充足资金，但同时价格也不能高到让消费者对石油产生畏惧感。这种指导思想使Aramco公司能够制定长期的投资计划并且增加资金来实现这些计划。  

    But clear strategic guidance, Miss Marcel argues, goes hand-in-hand with operational autonomy at the best NOCs. The Saudi government, for example, lets Aramco set its own prices, unlike Kuwait's, which hands them down to KPC from on high. Whereas Mr Chávez dictates where PDVSA should lay its pipelines, and who its customers should be, Aramco's managers make such decisions for themselves. Critically, Aramco is able to retain a portion of its earnings for maintenance and expansion, rather than subsisting on an allocation from the national budget, as Iran's state-run oil firm did until recently. 

    Marcel女士认为，在最好的国家石油公司里，清晰的战略指导和自主性的操作是同样重要的。例如，沙特政府就允许Aramco公司自行设定石油价格，而不象科威特是从政府高层直接将价格指令传下来。当查韦斯先生命令PDVSA应当在哪里放置管道，谁是它的消费者的时候，Aramco公司的管理者们却自行地决定这些事情。更重要的是，Aramco公司能够保留一部分收入用于公司的日常运作和扩张，而不是依靠国家预算的划拨来维持生计，而这是伊朗的国营石油公司的做法（直到最近才改变）。

    Competition also helps. The governments of Brazil and Malaysia, among others, allow other firms to bid against their respective NOCs, Petróleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) and Petroliam Nasional (Petronas), for exploration and production rights. Since the two have better knowledge of local conditions and geology, they can still hold their own against multinationals. But the competition forces them to keep costs down and methods up to date. The presence of multinationals also helps to develop a country's pool of skilled labour and, when they operate in joint ventures, to disseminate new technology and ideas.

    竞争也起了很大作用。不说别的，巴西和马来西亚允许其他公司和它们各自的国有石油公司――Petróleo Brasileiro (Petrobras)和 Petroliam Nasional (Petronas)来竞标石油开采权。由于两家公司更了解当地的地理条件和情况，因此它们仍然能够在与跨国公司的对抗中取胜。但是竞争迫使它们降低成本和更新技术。跨国公司的出现也帮助培养了一大批技术熟练的劳动力，并且当他们在合资企业中工作时也传播了新技术和新观念。

      Brazil and Malaysia are also among the countries that have tried to raise their NOCs' game by encouraging them to expand overseas, in places where they enjoy no special privileges. Much of Petrobras's oil comes from fields off Brazil's Atlantic coast. It has taken advantage of this expertise in offshore exploration and production to win contracts to develop deep-water fields in countries like Angola and Nigeria. Although KPC's upstream division enjoys a monopoly over oil production in Kuwait, its retailing arm, Q8, competes with multinational rivals in Europe. That not only allows KPC to extract more profit from its oil, but also provides it with useful intelligence for its dealings with other distributors.

      巴西和马来西亚也在尝试着鼓励它们的国有石油公司去海外进行扩张，而在那里它们就不能够享有任何特殊待遇了。Petrobras's的很大部分石油是来自远离巴西大西洋海岸的油田。在安哥拉和尼日利亚，它充分利用了这种离岸开采的专业能力来赢得深海油田的开发合同。虽然KPC的逆流而上的分割在科威特的石油生产方面取得了垄断性的地位，但它的零售部门Q8却在西欧和那些跨国对手们殊死搏斗。这不仅仅使得KPC从它得石油中榨取出利益，还为它如何同其它的销售商们进行打交道提供了有用的信息。

    One factor that does not seem to be a prerequisite to success for a national oil company is having a lot of oil. Petrobras, for one, began life as a refiner and distributor. It used its profits from those businesses to fund new ventures in exploration and production. Abundant, inalienable oil, on the other hand, seems to do most state-run firms more harm than good.

      要成为一家成功的国有石油公司并不需要的一个先决条件使它必须要拥有大量的石油储备。Petrobras,最开始是作为一家精炼厂和零售商的。它利用这些领域赚取的资金成立新的企业来从事石油的开采。从另一方面看，丰富的，不能转化为收益的石油看起来更是利大于弊。