A Star of Brazil’s Rise Slides Into Disarray
巴西國營石油大起大落
By Simon Romero and Landon Thomas Jr.

RIO DE JANEIRO – No company has embodied Brazil’s rise like the oil giant Petrobras.
沒有一家公司能像巴西石油公司那樣代表著巴西的崛起。

Bolstered by some of this century’s largest oil discoveries, Petrobras soared into the top ranks of global energy producers. Executives at the state-controlled company boasted that it could even outstrip Apple as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. Brazil seemed to be on the cusp of energy independence.
在巴西發現一些本世紀最大油藏的支撐下，巴西石油公司躍居全球能源生產業的A咖。這家國營公司的主管誇稱，該公司甚至可能超越蘋果，成為全球股價市值最高的公司。巴西似乎即將達到能源自主。

Now Petrobras is coming to symbolize something else entirely: the disarray afflicting Brazil’s sluggish economy and the reassessment of prospects in emerging markets around the world.
如今巴西石油公司卻象徵著一種完全不同的景況：國內陷入混亂造成經濟遲滯不前，而且全世界新興市場的展望也被重新評估。

Petrobras’s oil production has stagnated, heightening Brazil’s reliance on imported oil. Petrobras is mired in corruption investigations. And Petrobras now ranks as the world’s most indebted company.
巴西石油公司產量停滯，使巴西更加依賴進口石油，該公司遭到貪腐調查，並已成為世上負債最重的公司。

“The decline of Petrobras has been stunning,” said Fábio Fuzetti, a partner at Antares Capital Management, a São Paulo investment firm. “This is the energy company that served as the model for others in developing countries. Now it’s the example of precisely what not to do.”
聖保羅安特列斯資本管理公司合夥人傅塞提說：「巴西石油公司的墜落讓人昏倒。這是一家堪為其他開發中國家典範的能源公司。現在卻淪為標準的負面教材。」

But Petrobras remains profitable over all, and is a pioneer in deep-sea exploration. It also commands assets around the world, including oil and gas reserves of about 13 billion barrels.
不過巴西石油公司整體上仍然賺錢，也是深海石油探勘的先鋒。同時還在全世界掌控資產，包括高達130億桶的石油及天然氣蘊藏量。

Foreign bondholders, who fund 43 percent of the company’s investment program, have been patient, but analysts warn that the global liquidity glut is driving that. If Petrobras’s troubles worsen, it could run into resistance on international markets.
持有該公司債券的外資，對公司投資計畫挹注的資金占43%，到目前為止仍沉得住氣，但已有分析師警告，現在靠的是全球流動性泛濫；如果巴西石油的困境再惡化，便可能在國際市場遭受阻力。

The ills that plague Petrobras reflect a larger concern that the golden age for Brazil, China, Russia and Turkey, once the vanguard of the emerging-market boom, is ending.
巴西石油公司的困境反映出更大的憂慮，就是巴西、中國、俄羅斯及土耳其等新興市場繁榮先鋒所經歷的黃金時代正走向終點。

The problems at Petrobras, which is 60.5 percent owned by Brazil’s government, have come into sharp relief in recently as it grapples with a scandal over its acquisition of a Houston refinery at an estimated cost of $1.19 billion from Astra, a Belgian oil trading company that bought the refinery for just $42.5 million in 2005.
巴西石油公司60.5%的股權由政府持有。公司最近因涉入一樁弊案而使問題全盤浮現。公司之前曾以估計達11.9億美元的成本，向比利時艾斯特拉石油貿易公司買下一座位於休士頓的煉油廠，而艾斯特拉公司2005年購買這座煉油廠時只花了4250萬美元。

Police here also recently arrested one of Petrobras’s most powerful former executives, Paulo Roberto Costa, who led refining operations until 2012. Investigators say he was involved in a sprawling money-laundering scheme and may have received bribes related to the construction of a refinery that has ballooned in cost to $18.5 billion from $2.5 billion.
警方最近逮捕了公司一名最有權力的前主管柯斯塔，他一直負責煉油業務直到2012年。調查人員表示，他涉入一樁牽連極廣的洗錢作業；另外他還涉嫌受賄，使一座煉油廠的建廠成本從25億美元暴漲到185億美元。

Petrobras faces scrutiny over claims of $139 million in bribes from SBM Offshore, a Dutch oil rigs company, and overbilling in an $825 million contract with Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction and oil services giant.
公司面臨的調查包括接受荷蘭SBM外海鑽油平台公司1.39億美元的賄款，以及與巴西營建兼石油服務業巨擘歐迪柏瑞奇公司簽訂8.25億美元的合約時大肆灌水。

Petrobras is Brazil’s most powerful company and aims to invest about $220 billion over the next five years, said Tony Volpon, a Latin America expert at Nomura Securities. Most other companies in Brazil are not investing because of high interest rates, inflation and an expensive currency, are becoming less competitive. Citing the increasing debt load, Moody’s downgraded the company’s debt last October to Baa1, the third-lowest investment grade rating offered by the credit agency.
野村證券拉丁美洲市場專家伏爾朋表示，巴西石油公司是巴西最有實力的公司，未來五年的投資目標約2200億美元。巴西大部分其他公司則因利率、通膨上升，且幣值高而不再投資，競爭力也因而下降。穆迪信評公司基於巴西石油公司負債持續加重，去年十月將其債信評等降到Baa1級，是穆迪評等中倒數第三級。

Meanwhile, the company is struggling to lift oil and gas production, which fell 2.2 percent in 2013 to an average of 2.55 million barrels a day. There are signs this year that Petrobras may finally be succeeding in reversing such declines; the company’s oil production in Brazil climbed 0.3 percent in February from the previous month.
在此同時，巴西石油公司也難以提高石油及天然氣產量，2013年平均每天產油255萬桶，減少2.2%。有跡象顯示巴西石油終於使產量止跌；二月公司在巴西境內的產量比元月增加0.3%。

In an effort to keep inflation from accelerating during an election year, President Dilma Rousseff’s government has prevented Petrobras from raising fuel prices to meet the cost of importing refined gasoline and diesel. At the same time, domestic fuel consumption has surged.
巴西總統羅賽芙為了使通膨不致在大選年加速上升，因此儘管進口汽油及柴油的成本上升，政府仍禁止巴西石油公司提高燃料價格。同時國內燃料消費量卻激增。

The result is that Petrobras’s losses in its refining, transportation and marketing operations reached $8 billion in 2013.
結果是巴西石油公司2013年的煉油、運輸及行銷業務共虧損達80億美元。

Mr. Volpon expects the country’s economy to expand at well below 2 percent this year. “The problem with Brazil,” he said, “is that the days of 4 percent growth are gone.”
伏爾朋預測，巴西今年經濟成長率將遠低於2%；他說，「巴西的問題在於年經濟成長4%的日子已一去不返。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/business/international/brazils-star-petrobras-is-hobbled-by-scandal-and-stagnation.html

2014-05-13聯合報/G9版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 任中原譯 原文參見紐時週報七版左