金融时报:燃料补贴的末日？

燃料补贴的末日？

巴西和印度两个新兴市场大国都面对着巨额的燃料补贴的问题。对曾任巴西石油公司董事长的总统罗塞夫来说，这个问题对连任影响不小。印度政府已经做出了决定，接下来看巴西的了。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

A tale of two subsidies 这个标题取自狄更斯的小说《双城记》A Tale of Two Cities

Petrobras （国有的）巴西石油公司

diesel ['diːz(ə)l] 柴油

canny ['kænɪ] 精明

R 巴西雷亚尔(Real)

Rs 印度卢比(Rupees)

India/Brazil: A tale of two subsidies （338 words）

FT Lex, October 20, 2014

“The value of Petrobras… is a growing value. Everyone who has invested in Petrobras will make lots of money.”

President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil was in rousing form when defending the country's state-owned oil company in an election debate on Sunday. She once chaired its board. But the good news was slightly marred by Ms Rousseff's admission that some may have made their Petrobras money by siphoning it off the company directly.

And if this did not make Petrobras' minority shareholders feel glum about destruction of value, they could also have looked at India this weekend for a contrast. At the stroke of midnight Delhi time on Saturday, the market took over setting diesel prices after the government ended subsidies. These were a burden on the state and made profits less predictable at refiners (many themselves state-owned).

Petrobras' R$225bn (or $102bn) market value dwarfs any of these companies – even India's state owned ONGC, which like Petrobras is both a producer and a refiner. But the Brazilian government requires Petrobras to apply its own fuel subsidies. Prices are kept under control to stop inflation rising further. Between 2011 – a year after a $70bn equity offering to foreign investors – and 2013, Petrobras' net income was R$78bn overall. But its refining division, partly because of the subsidies, posted net losses of R$51bn. And this year the Brazilian real's weakening against the US dollar may make importing fuel dearer.

The Indian government has been canny. It picked the fall in oil prices to deregulate. The first breath of market forces was thus a Rs3.4 price cut per litre. The drop in crude prices is the equivalent of Rs5, HSBC thinks, so refiners could either pass more on to consumers or increase margins. Such opportunities do not often present themselves. The case for reforming Petrobras' pricing must get through an election first. It trades 8 times forecast 2015 earnings. To quote Ms Rousseff, there is muito dinheiro(a lot of money) at stake.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.What is the Lex's stand on fuel subsidies?

A.For.

B.Against.

C.Not clear.

答案(1)

2.Indian government ended what exactly?

A.All kinds of fiscal subsidies.

B.State ownership of oil companies.

C.Subsidies on diesel.

答案(2)

3.Petrobras has a 2013 profit of Real 78bn, a market value of 225bn, which is 8 times forcast 2015 earnings.

Is the company's profits going up or down?

A.Going up.

B.Going down.

C.More or less the same.

答案(3)

* * *

(1)答案：B.Against.

解释：FT一直很反对这种带来浪费和短缺的政策。文中有多处表现出希望巴西和印度政府取消这项政策。 These were a burden on the state and made profits less predictable at refiners.

(2)答案：C.Subsidies on diesel.

解释：随着补贴的终止，市场接管了柴油市场的定价。此前的补贴（因为取决于政治而非经济因素）让炼油厂的利润很不稳定。

(3)答案：B.Going down.

解释：简单计算下，目前的巴西石油公司股价是2013年利润的3倍，是2015年利润的8倍。因此它的利润在这两年是大幅下降的，因为最近的世界油价一直在跌。——所以机智的印度政府选在这个时机取消柴油补贴，这是文中的第一个重要线索；第二个线索是，罗塞夫受到不小的压力，“这事关一大笔钱”，这显然不是公司利润上涨时的态势。