Royal Dutch Shell has scrapped plans for a $6.5bn petrochemicals project with Qatar Petroleum, citing “the current economic climate prevailing in the energy industry”, the oil major said on Wednesday.
荷兰皇家壳牌(Royal Dutch Shell)周三表示，已经放弃与卡塔尔石油公司(Qatar Petroleum)合作开展一个价值65亿美元的石化项目的计划，原因是“能源行业当前的经济气候”。

The Al Karaana project, an 80:20 joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Shell, would have produced 2m tonnes a year of petrochemicals products, largely intended for Asian markets.
卡塔尔石油公司与壳牌按照80:20出资比例建立的Al Karaana合资项目原本计划每年生产200万吨的石化产品，主要供应亚洲市场。
The decision not to proceed — a significant move following the halving of oil prices since last summer — was taken “after a careful and thorough evaluation of commercial quotations” from engineering, procurement and construction bidders, Shell said.
壳牌表示，不再推进该项目的决定是在“对工程、采购和建筑投标人的商业报价进行审慎而全面的评估之后”做出的。该决定是自去年夏天以来油价下跌50%以后壳牌采取的一个重大举措。
These showed “high capital costs rendering it commercially unfeasible, particularly in the current economic climate prevailing in the energy industry.”
这些报价表明“高昂的资本成本让该项目在商业上变得不可行，尤其是在能源行业当前的经济气候下”。
Crude oil prices have plunged by more than 50 per cent since mid-June, creating winners and losers.
原油价格自去年6月中旬以来下跌逾50%，既让一部分人受益，也令一部分人蒙受损失。
Those who have suffered include producers and governments, whereas some companies stand to benefit from a fall in energy costs. This has encouraged analysts to liken the potential boost for the global economy to a huge programme of “quantitative easing”.
那些蒙受损失的包括生产商和各国政府，然而，有些公司却因能源成本下降而受益。这促使分析师将油价下跌对全球经济的潜在提振与庞大的“量化宽松”计划相提并论。
For oil companies, the falling price has triggered industry-wide scrutiny of capital spending, with the so-called majors — the biggest groups with upstream and downstream operations — expected to cut billions of dollars from exploration and development projects in the coming year, deferring and even axing programmes.
对石油公司来说，油价下跌引发全行业评估资本支出，那些所谓的石油巨头（拥有上下游业务的大型集团）预计来年在勘探和开发项目中削减数十亿美元支出，延迟甚至放弃某些项目。
Under pressure to improve returns following the first profit warning in its history last year, Shell had already embarked on an intense round of cost-cutting before the slide in international crude prices to below $50 a barrel, from more than $110 last summer.
壳牌去年发布了历史上首个盈利预警，在提高效益的压力下，该公司已经在国际油价从去年夏季的每桶逾110美元下跌至50美元之前大刀阔斧地实施了一轮削减成本的举措。
By the end of the third quarter, the Anglo-Dutch major had announced asset disposals of $14bn under a belt-tightening programme initiated by new chief executive Ben van Beurden.
截止去年第三季度末，壳牌按照新任首席执行官范伯登(Ben van Beurden)提出的紧缩项目，宣布了140亿美元的资产处置措施。
It has promised to pursue profits over production growth and aims to deliver $30bn to investors through dividends and share buybacks over 2014 and 2015. It said in October it was braced for a sustained price downturn and was now taking further action.
该公司承诺致力于盈利而非产量增长，目标是在2014年和2015年通过股息发放和股票回购向投资者提供300亿美元的回报。壳牌在去年10月表示，已经对油价持续下跌有所准备，正在采取进一步的行动。
Al Karaana, which took its name from an ancient Qatari village, is an example of the kind of planned spending the oil majors will be paring back. The joint venture to develop a huge complex at Ras Laffan, agreed in December 2011, would have produced 2m tonnes a year of petrochemicals, the bulk of which would have come from a monoethylene glycol plant, the largest of its kind in the world.
以卡塔尔古代的一个村庄命名的Al Karaana项目，就是壳牌即将削减此类计划支出的一个例子。壳牌与卡塔尔石油公司在2011年12月同意在卡塔尔拉斯拉凡(Ras Laffan)联合建设一座大型综合性工厂，每年生产200万吨的石化产品，其中大部分产品来自一个全球最大的单乙二醇工厂。
In March 2013 Fluor of the US won the major front-end engineering and design contract for the project. Feedstock for the plant would have come from natural gas projects in Qatar.
2013年3月，美国福陆公司(Fluor)赢得了该项目主要的前端工程和设计合同。按照计划，该工厂的原料将来自卡塔尔的天然气项目。
Shell’s existing ventures with Qatar Petroleum, including Pearl GTL, the world’s biggest integrated gas-to-liquids plant, located at Ras Laffan, are unaffected.
壳牌与卡塔尔石油公司的现有合作项目未受影响，包括位于拉斯拉凡、世界上最大的一体化天然气合成油工厂Pearl GTL。
Shares in Shell were down 2.3 per cent at £20.28 in afternoon London trading, following further falls in Brent crude to $46.
在伦敦下午盘交易时段，在布伦特油价进一步跌至46美元之后，壳牌股价下跌2.3%至20.28英镑。