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A grand supply agreement between America, Saudi Arabia and Russia might boost the oil price, but only temporarily.
美國、沙特阿拉伯和俄羅斯之間的一項重大供應協議可能會推高油價，但只是暫時的。
"The price war has become largely irrelevant," says Ben Luckock of Trafigura, a trading company.
貿易公司托克集團的Ben Luckock表示：“價格戰基本上已無關緊要。”
Saudi production now seems far less important, he argues, than the pandemic's historic destruction of oil demand.
他認為，現在沙特的石油生產似乎遠不如流行病對石油需求的歷史性破壞重要。
Covid-19 is obliterating this at such an astonishing rate that analysts cannot adjust their models quickly enough.
Covid-19正以如此驚人的速度抹去這一切，以至于分析師們無法快速地調整他們的模型。
Bernstein, a research firm, estimates that demand in the first half of the year may be 10%, or even 20%, below what it was in 2019.
研究公司Bernstein估計，今年上半年的需求可能會比2019年低10%，甚至20%。
In the past 35 years demand has only twice been lower than in the preceding year—in 2008 and 2009.
在過去35年中，需求只比前一年——2008年和2009年，低了兩倍。
Yet production has been slow to respond. That is only in part because of the price war.
但生產對此的反應一直都很慢。這只是價格戰的部分原因。
Once a shale well is drilled, there are only marginal savings from stopping production.
一旦頁巖井開鉆，停產只會帶來很少的邊際儲蓄。
Many oil companies are hedged and continue pumping in the hope prices will rise.
很多石油公司都進行了對沖，并繼續開采，以期油價上漲。
Even when firms slash spending, output may not drop quickly. On March 24th Chevron, an American supermajor,
即使公司削減支出，產量可能也不會迅速下降。3月24日，全球六大石油化工公司之一的美國雪佛龍
said that it would cut capital spending by 20% this year, but that production in 2020 would roughly match that in 2019.
稱其今年將削減20%的資本支出，但2020年的產量將與2019年大致相當。
It looks possible that supply will not just exceed demand for oil now but fill the capacity to store it.
現在看來，石油供應可能不僅會超過需求，而且還會填補儲存石油的能力。
Bernstein reckons that there could be over 735m barrels of extra crude this year,
Bernstein認為，今年可能會有超過7.35億桶的額外原油，
and only about 500m barrels of storage available in the OECD, a club of mainly rich countries, and oil tankers.
而在主要由富國和油輪組成的OECD中，僅有約5億桶的儲油可用。
In the face of such a demand shock, "a production cut that takes a month or two to implement won't do much,"
面對這樣的需求沖擊，“需要一兩個月才能實施的減產措施不會起多大作用，”
argues Damien Courvalin of Goldman Sachs, a bank.
高盛投資公司的Damien Courvalin說到。
He contends that a production limit in Texas would slow the consolidation that America's shale industry needs to be competitive in the long term.
他認為，德克薩斯州的產量限制將減緩美國頁巖氣行業需要形成長期競爭力的整合。
Government stimulus might help to boost demand.
政府的刺激措施可能有助于刺激需求。
But the essential fix to bring the market back into balance, reckons Mr Luckock, is a painful one: even lower oil prices.
但Luckock認為，讓市場恢復平衡的關鍵措施是痛苦的：更低的油價。
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