When the week began with a 588-point drop in the Dow Jones Index and crude oil dropped to $38 per barrel, pundits on the news blamed the slowdown of China's economy (while Donald Trump blamed President Barack Obama) and the phones at Gas Buddy’s offices, as expected, rang non-stop.
当本周开始，道琼斯指数下跌588个点，原油价格降到每桶38美元时，新闻里的权威人士把原因归咎于中国经济放缓(而唐纳德·特朗普则指责总统奥巴马)。不出所料，Gas Buddy办公室的电话响个不停。
Inquiring reporters wanted to know: "How low can it (crude oil and gasoline) go?"
询问的记者们想知道：原油和汽油价格到底会跌到什么程度?
Even before the stock market's "correction" shed billions from the value of publicly-traded companies, oil industry experts like Bull Reef Brokerage's Scott Shellady told Fox Business News on Aug. 20 that he anticipated benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude to fall to a range of "$32 to $35 per barrel" before recovering at a higher but unspecified level.
甚至在股票市场调整使得上市公司缩水几十亿市值之前，石油行业专家像Bull Reef Brokerage公司的Scott Shellady就在8月20日的福克斯商业新闻中指出，他预测WTI价格在恢复到一个没特定指明的较高水平之前，将会降到每桶32至35美元/桶。
According to the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, echoed the same estimate, while Carsten Fritsch, an oil analyst with Commerzbank AG, said he expects China's problems to push crude as low as $30 in the months ahead.
据华尔街日报报道，Lipow Associates石油咨询公司总裁Andrew Lipow给出了同样的预估值，而西德商业银行的分析师Carsten Fritsch则表示，他预计在未来几个月里中国问题将使油价低至30美元。
With smart guys like those saying the bottom is falling out of crude oil, surely we should be seeing gas prices slide sharply, shouldn't we? One reporter from Florida asked me Monday if $1.50 gasoline might arrive before Christmas.
当这些聪明人说原油价格正在触底，我们必将看到汽油价格也将急剧下降，不是吗?周一，弗罗里达州的记者问我圣诞节之前汽油价格是否会降到1.5美元。
I told him that much of Florida (and many other states too) could see prices below $2 before Christmas, but that's not much of a stretch from where we are now. Florida's average price is $2.34, and that's 98 cents less than last year's average price at this time. The national average is $2.56 and already 11 states have retailers somewhere selling gas below $2.
我告诉他弗罗里达(其他很多州也是一样)很大程度上会在圣诞节之前迎来2美元，但这并非是我们现在情况的很大程度上的延伸。弗罗里达汽油平均价格为2.34美元，比去年同期平均价格低98美分。全国平均价格为2.56美元，已经有11个州的零售商的售价低于2美元了。
He asked: "If crude goes to $35 how low would our gas be?" And when I replied that there's never a direct correlation between crude prices and retail gasoline, he didn't want to hear it.
他问道：“如果原油价格降到35美元，汽油价格将会降多少?”当我回答原油价格和零售汽油价格从来没有直接关系时，他并不想听。
"How much was gas the last time crude was this low?" he asked. It's never that simple. But, for the record, when crude slid to $32 in December 2008, the national average price of gas was $1.59. If we see $32 crude this year, don't expect the price at the pump to be anywhere near $1.59. The market fundamentals are drastically different today and we're all paying more fuel taxes too.
“那上次原油价格这么低的时候，汽油价格是多少?”他问。事情一直并非那么简单。2008年12月，当原油价格跌到32美元时，全国汽油的平均价格为1.59美元。如果今年原油价格跌到32美元，不要期望任何加油站的汽油价格会降到1.59美元左右。今天，市场基本面大不同了，我们也正在缴纳更多的燃油税。
（来源：金正纵横翻译事业部编译）
