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  3. It is a blazing morning in the Permian basin, in west Texas, America’s most productive oilfield. On the high plains a rig gnaws

It is a blazing morning in the Permian basin, in west Texas, America’s most productive oilfield. On the high plains a rig gnaws

admin2020-01-11  99
问题    It is a blazing morning in the Permian basin, in west Texas, America’s most productive oilfield. On the high plains a rig gnaws at rock more than 3, 000 feet (0.9km) underground. When the drill bit reaches about a mile and a half in depth, nearly six times the height of the Empire State Building, it will munch its way sideways for another two miles. Then comes the interesting part. After completing one horizontal well, the towering rig will rise virtually intact, shuffle forward for about an hour, then prepare to drill again.
   Such walking rigs are one way that Concho Resources, the company which owns the well, seeks to extract more oil, more efficiently. Concho is not alone. The shale industry has made America the world’s top producer of crude oil. But as the world becomes more dependent on American oil, American oil is becoming more dependent on the Permian Basin, which spans about 75, 000 square miles across west Texas and southeastern New Mexico. On the surface, the natural landscape is all but barren. But underground lies layer upon layer of shale rich with oil and gas. A geological millefeuille. The region accounted for 30% of America’s oil production in July, up from 23% two years earlier.
   The Permian and other American shale basins had already been drilled for decades using conventional wells. Then after the financial crisis of 2007-08 low interest rates helped companies deploy new techniques on well after well: they drilled horizontally, then pummeled shale with sand and water, a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or tracking, until the rock relinquished its oil and gas.
   Because about 80% of a shale well’s production occurs within two years of tracking, firms kept buying oil rights and drilling. In 2014 the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), fed up with giddy American production, declined to curb its own output. Having soared to $115 in June 2014, the price of Brent crude oil plunged to $29 a barrel in January 2016. Since 2015 Texas alone has seen 71 bankruptcies of exploration-and-production firms, says Haynes and Boone, a law firm.
   As a result, investors’ appetite for growth for growth’s sake has waned. Shale companies now claim to have changed how they operate. Take Pioneer Natural Resources. In 2015 David Einhorn, a prominent short-seller, unkindly labelled Pioneer a "mother-fracker" for its profligate ways. Today Timothy Dove, the firm’s chief executive, tempers his bullishness about the Permian with more attention to costs. Pioneer is selling assets so it can center its business entirely in the Permian, where Mr. Dove says he can drill most economically. Executives are being paid for returns as well as rising output.
   Companies such as Pioneer and Concho are also revising techniques in the field.
   Fracking recovers only about 8-10% of oil in shale. "If you can actually go from 10% to 12%, that’s a 20% increase in the amount of oil you’re recovering, " says Mr. Dove. So firms are drilling several wells on a single site, to reduce drilling time and costs, and then blasting wells with more water and sand, to extract more oil. Concho is continuously testing optimal ways to frack, for instance by targeting one section of a well, then a section of another nearby, then returning to the first well for more fracking.
   However, investment discipline remains patchy. According to analysis by Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, which examined the most recent quarterly results of American exploration and production companies, nine of the biggest dozen firms, including Concho and Pioneer, had cashflow from operations that exceeded capital spending (and Pioneer, just barely). Among the dozen smallest companies reviewed, only three earned more than they spent.
   Even with high oil prices, now at around $80, the industry faces new pressures. Pipelines from the Permian are jammed with crude. New ones will open late next year, yet other problems will persist. Oil service firms slashed their rates after the most recent crash, but those prices are creeping up. Mr. Trump’s tariffs on imported steel will make equipment more expensive. The cost of hiring and housing workers is soaring.
The purpose of this passage is to______.
选项 A、introduce the drilling process
B、satire America’s investment disciplines
C、criticize Mr. Trump’s tariffs on imported steel
D、talk about the situation of America’s shale industry
答案D
解析 本题要结合全文来理解。A项意为“介绍钻井过程”，仅在第一段中体现，并不能体现全文主旨，因此A项错误。B项意为“讽刺美国投资规则”，文中只提及投资规则不完善，而无讽刺之意，因此B项错误。C项意为“批判特朗普先生对钢材进口征税”，文中只提到对钢材进口征税使得设备价格更加高昂，并无批判之意，因此C项错误。D项意为“探讨美国页岩行业现状”，全文都围绕这一主题叙述，因此D项正确。
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