壳牌阿拉斯加采油船搁浅带来的启示

    他现在表示，库鲁克号事故正好证明了自己的观点：“我没想到头一年就能出这么多乱子，但这正好说明他们要做的这件事难度有多大。这个行业里的游戏规则是‘何时能赚到第一笔钱’，如果你不能在10年内赚到第一笔钱，后续就很难在这个项目上挣到说得过去的回报。”

    持怀疑态度的不止他一个。与石油业经常打交道的美国德州农工大学墨西哥湾哈特研究所（Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies）执行理事拉瑞•麦金尼也算一位。麦金尼预测，以当地的浮冰和气候条件来说，“没有发生什么恶性事件就是科技奇迹了。”

    库鲁克号事故之后，我再次致电麦金尼。他重申了自己最初的担心，并强调库鲁克号事故将给反对海上采油的观点提供“弹药”。“那里的条件十分艰苦，”他说。“肯定会发生不幸的事情。”北极地区出事，就算是小事故也会给经营带来很大的影响。“在北极耽误两个月可不就只耽误了两个月，”麦金尼说。“耽误两个月可能就错过了整个开采期。”

    译者：郭延航

    The Kulluk accident, he now says, bears this out: "I didn't expect to see so many things go wrong in their first year, but it shows you how hard it is to do what they want to do. In this business, the name of the game is 'time to first cash flow,' and if you can't get first cash flow for at least 10 years, then it's going to be awfully hard to earn a decent return on the project."

    He wasn't the only skeptic. Larry McKinney is executive director at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M, which frequently works with the oil industry. Given the ice and weather conditions, McKinney predicted that it would be "a technological miracle if something bad doesn't happen."

    I called McKinney again after the Kulluk accident. He reiterated his initial concern, noting that the Kulluk accident will give "ammunition" to those who oppose offshore drilling. "The conditions are extreme up there," he said, "which means something is going to happen, unfortunately." And when things do go wrong in the Arctic, small problems have outsized business impacts. "A two-month delay in the Arctic is not a two-month delay," McKinney said. "A two-month delay could wipe out the entire drilling season."