首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
When the Wells Dry Up A "Everyone else in Britain hangs on what the Bank of England does with interest rates," says one proud
When the Wells Dry Up A "Everyone else in Britain hangs on what the Bank of England does with interest rates," says one proud
admin
2011-01-14
33
问题
When the Wells Dry Up
A "Everyone else in Britain hangs on what the Bank of England does with interest rates," says one proud Aberdonian. "Up here, we don’ t care about that. We’ re much more interested in what OPEC does to the oil price." An exaggeration maybe, but Aberdeen is the Houston of an offshore industry that has long made Britain a big oil and gas producer. The petropounds coursing through the "Granite City" on the north-east coast of Scotland have turned Aberdeen into one of the most prosperous cities in Britain. The typical worker makes £481 a week, compared with median earnings of £447 across Britain. The city’ s unemployment rate is well under the national average. The oil industry employs 33,000 people directly in Aberdeen and is estimated to provide work for 400,000 in Britain.
B Aberdeen is booming now thanks to high oil prices, but the future looks less rosy. Offshore output peaked eight years ago, when Britain was the world’ s sixth-biggest producer of oil and gas; by 2006 it had become the 12th-biggest. The International Energy Agency said on July 10th that the drop in production had been steeper than expected. "There’ll be nothing here in 15 years’ time," says one former offshore worker. "Oil’ s been good to me, but I wouldn’t want my son going into the business." The recent decision by Royal Dutch Shell to sell off several of its North Sea fields and to abandon the construction of a £25 million head-quarters in the city has added to local worries.
C Yet even though oil and gas output is declining, the local businesses that have sprung up to support it have bright prospects. The North Sea was one of the earliest offshore oil basins to be developed. Many of the technologies needed to produce oil from underwater wells—especially in the difficult, gale-prone waters off the British coast—were developed in Scotland. Around 90% of oil-industry workers are employed not by the big international companies such as BP or Total that operate the fields but by local businesses.
D For example, Wood Group is a big oil-services firm that specialises in, among other things, enhanced-recovery technology and offshore pipelines. Sub-Atlantic is a small outfit that makes remotely operated submarines. Altogether such businesses—covering everything from catering and construction to geology and engineering—have a turnover of around £11.7 billion a year. The hope is that they will be able to sell the expertise they have acquired in the North Sea to an industry searching for oil and seeking to maximise production in ever more testing submarine conditions around the world.
E One area of particular British expertise is in subsea technology, a catch-all term for things such as automated wellheads and long pipeline networks on the seabed. These allow oil companies to use cheap ships instead of expensive fixed platforms and enable them to operate several wells from one platform many miles away. Remotely operated vehicles are used to install and maintain equipment where water is too deep for divers. In 2005 Britain’ s subsea industry’ s output was worth around £3.4 billion, half of which was exported, a 20% rise on the year before. There are big opportunities to keep growing fast. British firms account for half of global sales, and the industry is expanding rapidly. The world market for subsea services could be worth $40 billion by 2011, according to Scottish Enterprise, a development agency. David Pridden, the boss of Subsea UK, a trade agency, thinks exports from the British industry could reach $15 billion by 2020.
F Local businesses also have experience in squeezing more output out of existing fields, or cheaply developing smaller ones—something that should extend the life of Britain’ s North Sea industry. As big finds become rarer, producers are focusing on how to extract oil from smaller reservoirs that can be geologically or technically tricky to operate. "As other oilfields around the world begin to mature, there’ 11 be a centre of expertise here that can tell them how to get the most out of their remaining reserves," says Geoff Runcie, the boss of the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce.
G The city’ s cluster of high-tech businesses may have sprung up to support the North Sea oil industry but there are also opportunities beyond it. Many local firms have branched off into other areas, such as defence. Technologies developed to pull oil and gas from the ocean floor can find other uses, too. When a Russian mini-submarine became caught on the Pacific seabed in 2005, it was cut free by a British remotely operated submarine based on technology developed for the North Sea. Aberdeen also has ambitions to exploit its oil-support know-how in green energy. The hope is that local businesses with expertise in offshore construction and engineering can provide services to firms building offshore wind turbines or, in future, tidal and wave-powered generators. Even exhausted oil and gas fields may come in handy. One idea is that they can be used to store carbon emissions from fossil-fuel power plants.
H The city is not short of ambition, but cooler-headed businessmen point out that it is easier to recognise opportunities than to grasp them. Exports still account for only about a quarter of the oil-support industry’ s output. Last year they grew by just 2%, compared with 16% in 2005, despite efforts by Scottish Enterprise to encourage firms to expand overseas. Oilmen make similar complaints to their counterparts in the rest of Britain’ s engineering sector: that the country lacks skilled workers; the standard of technical education is inadequate; and the government is ineffective in tackling these problems. Yet such complaints have been made ever since the first North Sea well started pumping in 1967. The cluster of businesses in Aberdeen has achieved a critical mass thanks to the North Sea. It now stands a good chance of thriving in more distant offshore markets as the demand for energy continues to boom.
*
选项
答案
B
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/ViVO777K
本试题收录于:
雅思阅读题库雅思(IELTS)分类
0
雅思阅读
雅思(IELTS)
相关试题推荐
Collegestudentsshouldbeencouragedtopursuesubjectsthatinterestthemratherthanthecoursesthatseemmostlikelytolea
IfanamountPistobeinvestedatanannualinterestrateof3.5percent,compoundedannually,whatshouldbethevalueofPs
IfAistheinitialamountputintoanaccount,Ristheannualpercentageofinterestwrittenasadecimal,andtheinterestco
IfanamountPistobeinvestedatanannualinterestrateof3.5percent,compoundedquarterly,whatshouldbethevalueofP
Therecreationdirectoratalocalyouthclubsurveyedthememberstodetermineinterestintwoactivities—ahikingtripandas
A、Atheoryisproposed,considered,andthenamended.B、Opposingviewsarepresented,elaborated,andthenreconciled.C、Aprobl
Thedevelopmentofthesegenetechnologiesmaybefarinthefuture,butthemoralandsocialissuesraisedbythemshouldbedi
Theemu,farfrombeingendangered,hasactuallybeen(i)______;itisoneofthefewAustraliananimalsthathasfoundtheeff
Recently,agroupofresearchersfromTokyodevelopedadevicethatallowsthemtoidentifyindividualsoftheendangeredGanges
Commercialtradeinendangeredspeciesofwhaleswassuspendedgloballyin1986,butthis______mayendforsomespecies.
随机试题
在管壳式换热器中,用饱和蒸汽冷凝以加热空气,下面两项判断为()。甲:传热管壁温度接近加热蒸汽温度。乙:总传热系数接近于空气侧的对流传热系数。
下齿槽神经阻滞麻醉部位是在麻醉过程中病人发生晕厥,以下处理措施哪项是错误的
低渗性缺水时,在血清钠尚未明显降低之前,尿钠含量
帐外设帐是一种严重的()。
某公司2003年7月6日销售一批商品给A公司,单位价格为1500元,凡购买40件以上者,给予10%的商业折扣,并规定现金折扣为2/10,1/20,n/30,A公司购买了50件商品,双方均为增值税一般纳税人,A公司于7月15日支付货款。在净价法下公司的入
企业当月增加的固定资产,当月计提折旧;当月减少的固定资产,当月不提折旧。()
第一次国共合作的政治基础和共同纲领是()。
Teachersneedtobeawareoftheemotional,intellectual,andphysicalchangesthatyoungadultsexperience.Andtheyalsoneed
假设与某类资源相关联的信号量初值为3,当前值为1,若M表示该资源的可用个数,N表示等待该资源的进程数,则M、N分别是()。
Islamisacompletewayoflife.ItconsidersthefamilythecornerstoneofIslamicsociety.Itbasestheatmosphereinthefam
最新回复
(
0
)