美国是否应该提高石油产量

    美国总统奥巴马称，大幅提高美国国内原油产量，在平抑油价和刺激经济增长方面的作用微不足道。但考虑到目前每加仑汽油价格已经超过4美元，而且中东地区的骚乱导致石油产量随时被压缩的担忧情绪蔓延，因此，人们有必要检视一下是否真的像政府声称的那样，大规模扩大石油开采的作用不大。

    实际上，挖掘美国国内油井的潜力，可以使未来的美国更加富足，这主要表现在如下三个方面：首先，虽然奥巴马发表了相反的言论，但实际上，通过开采储量巨大的页岩油，额外增加的产量足以使全球石油单价降低几美元；其次，增加产能可以缓冲供给冲击，进而提供一种巨灾保险政策。在目前供应紧张、脆弱的市场形势下，供给冲击的破坏性尤为严重；第三，扩大产量意味着减少美国的石油进口，进而有利于改善美国的贸易平衡。减少“净进口”将会改善美国的发展之路，这一点通过计算GDP数据就可以看出。

如何实现？

    要想充分利用石油产区的优势，关键是要理解全球石油价格的形成机制。在正常情况下，全球石油价格相当于消费者愿意购买的最后一桶最高价石油的成本。然而现在处于非常时期。目前，所谓最后一桶石油可能开采自加拿大的含油砂，成本在70至80美元之间。但目前的石油价格为何会达到105美元左右？原因就在于全球的额外产能微乎其微。

    美国传统基金会（Heritage Foundation）经济学家戴维•克莱采尔称：“据我估计，额外产能仅有约每天50万桶。这相当于2008年石油价格飙升时的水平。”

    产能紧张意味着几乎所有油井均在全力开采。许多产油国本应在短期内有所反应，以增加石油产量；但是恰恰相反，他们可能选择观望。以沙特阿拉伯为例，为重新启用旧的油井并升级旧的油田设施，它需要投入大量资金，但现在却打算放弃投资，主要原因是担心目前高企的油价只是暂时现象。

    结果，由于每天进入市场的石油数量有限，迫切需要石油的消费者不得不竞购石油。实际上，由于汽油紧缺，伦敦的汽车司机出价就会高于芝加哥的司机，而且芝加哥的司机可以乘坐火车来减少用油。这种竞购大幅推高了石油价格，远远超过制造商钻探石油的成本，造成了经济学上所谓的“稀有溢价”。而这也正是埃克森美孚（Exxon Mobil）等石油大鳄能够赚得钵满盆满的原因。

    市场是怎么变成这样的？从2003年至2008年，由于中国和印度的快速工业化，石油需求激增。密歇根大学（University of Michigan）经济学教授卢茨•基利安表示：“为了满足需求的上涨，石油储量丰富的国家均扩大了产量，并一直持续到2006年左右。之后，产量基本持平，虽然在经济开始复苏后，石油需求又开始增加，但产量却未能保持增长。”

    President Obama argues that a campaign to substantially raise domestic crude oil production would provide miniscule benefits in lower prices and enhanced growth. With gasoline at over $4 a gallon in some places, and turmoil in the Middle East igniting fears that a big squeeze could strike at any time, it's important to examine whether the economic argument for a major expansion in drilling is really as weak as the administration claims.

    In fact, tapping the potential gusher within reach would enrich our future in three ways. First, despite the President's declarations to the contrary, the extra output could be large enough to lower world prices by several dollars a barrel, chiefly through exploiting the enormous promise of shale oil. Second, adding to capacity would provide a sort of catastrophic insurance policy by cushioning shocks in supply that are especially damaging in the kind of tight, vulnerable market we're experiencing today. And third, raising production means lowering our oil imports, and hence greatly improving our balance of trade. By pure GDP math, shrinking "net imports" would lift America's growth trajectory.

How we got here

    To appreciate the advantages of prizing the oil patch, it's crucial to understand how global oil prices are established. In normal times, the world price equals the cost of the last, most expensive barrel that consumers are willing to buy. Times are anything but normal. Right now, that barrel is probably being produced from Canadian tar sands at between $70 and $80. So why is the prevailing price around $105? The reason is that worldwide excess production capacity is extremely tight.

    "I estimate that extra capacity is only around half-a-million barrels a day," says David Kreutzer, an economist at the Heritage Foundation. "That's about the same level we saw when prices spiked in 2008."

    Tight capacity means that almost all wells are pumping full tilt. To bring on more oil, producers that could react quickly may choose not to. A country like Saudi Arabia would need to spend lots of money uncapping old wells, and upgrading old fields, investments it's now unwilling to make, in part from fears these high prices are temporary.

    That leaves oil-hungry consumers to bid for the fixed number of barrels entering the market each day. In effect, someone commuting by car in London outbids a Chicago driver for scarce gasoline, and the Chicago driver saves by taking the train. That bidding is now driving the price far above the cost for the producer drilling the world's most expensive oil, creating what's called in economics a "scarcity premium." And it's why Exxon Mobil (XOM) and other oil giants are generating such huge profits.

    How did the market reach this bind? From 2003 to 2008, demand for oil rose sharply, driven primarily by rapid industrialization in China and India. "The oil rich nations matched the rise in demand by producing more until around 2006," says Lutz Kilian, professor of economics at the University of Michigan. "Then, production went flat, and even when demand started increasing again after the recovery began, production didn't keep up."