I.C.S.31.001.Capital.Energy.OXY

I.C.S.31.001.Capital.Energy.OXY

石油是一个可以理解的业务,巴菲特在历史上多次尝试过投资石油股,最近的尝试(OXY)是从一笔优先股开始的,可以理解为他对单纯押注油价的长期趋势缺少信心,需要用优先股保护下行的风险,巴菲特的股东信中有很多关于优先股和垃圾债的讨论,包括:
(1)1995年的股东信,Gillette、Champion、First Empire、Salomon、USAir,5笔优先股的总结;
(2)2001年的股东信,FINOVA Group,1笔垃圾债的评论;
(3)2008年的股东信,Wrigley、Goldman Sachs、General Electric,3笔优先股的投资。

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我们想要的企业必须是: (1) 我们能够理解的生意;(2) 具有良好的长期前景; (3) 由诚实且能干的人经营; (4) 非常吸引人的价格。

1、Right Business

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对一家企业长期经济特征能够被评估的确定性。
石油是一个周期性波动的业务,只有在供应短缺的时候能真正赚到钱,所以投资的要点是股价处于相对低的位置提前买入,有足够的下行保护,再有一点可能的上行收益。

(1)石油消费一直处于稳定增长的状态

全世界的石油消费一直处于稳定增长的状态,以下是根据《OPEC-World oil demand》计算的数据。
区间期初(mb/d)期末(mb/d)CAGR
1975–198556.2060.130.68%
1985–199560.1369.811.50%
1995–200569.8184.681.95%
2005–201584.6895.561.22%
2015–2024(9年)95.56102.630.80%

中国 2025 年官方公布的工业增加值是 41.68万亿元人民币,每天消耗的石油是1600万桶,80美元/桶,折人民币3.32万亿,占工业增加值的7.95%,如果涨到160美元/桶,占工业增加值的15.91%。

(2)石油是一个供需紧平衡的产品

石油是一个供需紧平衡的产品,少量短缺导致大幅涨价,少量过剩导致大幅度跌价,EIA有一段评论比较好的总结:《EIA-Oil and petroleum products explained》
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Geopolitical events and severe weather that disrupt the flow of crude oil and petroleum products to market can affect crude oil and petroleum product prices. These events may create uncertainty about future supply or demand, which can lead to higher price volatility. Oil price volatility is tied to low responsiveness, or inelasticity, of supply and demand to price changes in the short term. Crude oil production capacity and the equipment that uses petroleum products as its main source of energy are relatively fixed in the near term. It takes time to develop new supply sources or to vary production, and when prices rise, switching to other fuels or increasing equipment fuel efficiency in the near term is challenging for consumers to do. These conditions may require a large price change to rebalance physical supply and demand.
地缘政治事件和严重天气扰乱原油和石油产品流入市场,会影响原油和石油产品的价格。这些事件可能造成未来供需不确定性,进而引发价格波动性。石油价格波动与供需对短期价格变化的响应度低或非弹性性有关。原油产能及以石油产品为主要能源的设备在短期内相对稳定。开发新的供应来源或调整产量需要时间,当价格上涨时,消费者在短期内转向其他燃料或提高设备燃油效率将面临挑战。这些条件可能需要大幅价格变动以重新平衡实物供需。
供应的结构性问题包括:
  1. 高度集中
EIA 的最新 chokepoints 报告显示,2025 年上半年全球石油和其他液体燃料供给大约 104.4 mb/d,其中约 79.8 mb/d 经海运,约占 76%;仅 Hormuz 一条海峡就承载约 20.9 mb/d,相当于全球液体燃料消费的约 20%。
  1. 多数产油国处于不稳定的状态
以下的数据来自美国能源信息管理局,参考:《What countries are the top producers and consumers of oil?》
国家产量(百万桶/日)全球占比
美国21.9122%
沙特阿拉伯11.1311%
俄罗斯10.7511%
加拿大5.766%
中国5.265%
伊拉克4.424%
巴西4.284%
阿联酋4.164%
伊朗3.994%
科威特2.913%
前十合计74.5973%
全球合计101.81100%
在上述表格中,除美国、加拿大、中国以外都是不稳定的国家,美国占比最高但基本属于自给自足,中国有70%的需求需要进口,唯一稳定的是加拿大,占比只有6%。
  1. 缺乏弹性
石油不能大量储存,战略储备都只能满足几个月的需求;也很难快速增产,从勘探、开发、管道到投产,很多项目要几年,如果需要求是稳定并且刚性的,那么供应的波动会造成价格上更大的波动。

以下是历史数据的观察,第1张图是1960-至今全球每年的石油产量,参考:《OPEC-World crude production》
第2张是1859年至今的石油价格,参考:《U.S. Crude Oil First Purchase Price (Dollars per Barrel)》
过去的150多年里,石油价格发生跳涨的有两次:
  1. 1970-1980,具体原因包括1973–74 阿拉伯石油禁运、1978–79 伊朗革命和随后两伊战,同时,当时的美国正处于大通胀的时期;
  2. 2000-至今,供应跟不上需求,石油整体上处于紧平衡的状态,最直接的证据是美国的页岩油,从2010年的80万桶/天,增加到2024年的890万桶/天,页岩油和常规油的开采成本相差非常大,目前的差距大概是6x美元对比1x美元。

(3)美国页岩油的边际作用

美国的石油产量在1970达到顶峰后一路下滑,到2011年页岩油开发成功再次回升,美国页岩油是石油紧平衡、油价上涨的结果,同时也说明美国以外的地方在2000以后难以实现石油的增产,下图来自《U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil》
  1. 为什么美国能把不太赚钱的页岩油做大?
这里包含了政治、技术、地理资源,也包括资本市场对于低回报和高失败率的容忍度。
  1. 2011-2020年,页岩油导致美国石油公司在资本支出上失控,因为页岩把美国石油变成了一个短周期、可快速加杠杆扩张的生意,管理层和资本市场在很长时间里把‘产量增长’误当成了‘价值创造’,结果把行业推入了 outspend cash flow 的竞赛”。直到 2020 之后,资本市场才基本把这个行业重新训回“先自由现金流、再谈增长”的框架。
    1. 准确的时间切法是:2011–2014 是第一轮扩张,2015–2016 是油价崩盘后的强制刹车,2017–2019 是价格修复后又一次“证明自己会资本纪律”的阶段,但很多公司仍没有真正做到。到 2020 年疫情与油价暴跌,这套“先增产、后谈回报”的模式基本被打穿;2021–2022 开始,投资者和债权人才真正把行业目标函数改成了“return on capital first”。
  1. 油价对于页岩油的经济账非常重要
Dallas Fed 2025 年一季度调查显示,新井平均盈亏平衡约 $65/bbl,大公司约 $61,小公司约 $66;而且企业对不确定性高度敏感。很多公司在今天不会因为短期高价就立刻大幅扩张资本开支。换句话说,哪怕价格上涨,页岩也更可能是温和增产,而不是再现上一轮那种“资本先冲进去、产量后冲上去”的模式,参考:《Dallas Fed Energy Survey: Uncertainty spikes in the oil patch, activity grows slightly》
  1. 美国页岩油产量已经到达峰值
EIA 数据显示,美国页岩油增长已高度依赖 Permian。2020–2024 年非 Permian tight oil 已下降约 15%,而美国总原油产量在 2025–2027 年预测中总体处于 13.6–13.8 mb/d 的高位平台附近。

(4)过去10年美国油企的国际化程度显著下降

OXY不是个例,过去10年,COP、CVX,包括XOM的国际化程度显著下降,这些企业在美国本地的资产显著提升,如下表所示:
公司2015 左右美国占比2024–2025 美国占比变化方向主要原因
OXY约 50%83%(2025Q1 管理层口径)显著上升退出若干国家,集中到美国核心资产;Anadarko、CrownRock 等并购把组合进一步拉向美国。
CVX约 27%(即海外约 73%)约 47%–49%(2024 YTD 上游口径)明显上升Permian / DJ 增长强于国际;美国产量创纪录;组合更偏向高回报美国资产。
COP约 31%(Lower 48 / 总产量)约 58%(2024 Lower 48 / 总产量)显著上升Concho、Shell Permian、Marathon Oil 等并购叠加美国非常规开发,把重心明显拉向 Lower 48。
XOM无法简单概括为“低美国占比”不是单纯“美国化”,更像美国 + Guyana 双核心部分成立Permian 占比提升很明显,但 Guyana 成为过去十年最重要的非美国增长极之一,因此更准确的说法是“集中于最优资产”,不只是“集中于美国”。

大致两个因素促进了上述变化。
  1. 页岩油的成功,美国本土重新出现的重大机会,也促成一系列的并购,比如,OXY 先有 Anadarko,再有 CrownRock;Chevron 有 PDC、Hess;ConocoPhillips 有 Concho、Shell Permian、Marathon Oil;Exxon 有 Pioneer。
  2. 海外的大量油气资源被NOC(National Oil Company,国家石油公司)控制,美国公司化运作的油企越来越难参与合作,这些机构的资源控制力强,“有资源、有牌照”,但目标不一定只是股东回报,还可能包括财政收入、就业、能源安全、外交等。

2、Right People

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(1)对管理层能够被评估的确定性——既包括其实现企业全部潜力的能力,也包括其明智运用现金流的能力;(2)对管理层是否可以被指望把企业回报导向股东、而非导向自身的确定性。
Vicki Hollub(OXY的CEO)因为一笔疯狂的业务跟BRK建立了联系,2019年在竞购 Anadarko 时把自己逼到了必须快速融资的位置:第一,她在 Chevron 已经签署协议之后主动介入,而且不愿意走股东投票这条路——她设计了一个绕过股东的融资结构,用巴菲特的 100 亿美元优先股替代了需要股东批准的股票发行;第二,她接受了极其昂贵的融资条件——8% 年息的优先股,外加认股权证。

Vicki Hollub是一个目标驱动极强、执行力极强的人,还有一段采访可以作为补充,参考:《2022-09-10 How a CEO Rescued a Big Bet on Big Oil; ‘There Were a Lot of Doubters’》。
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A University of Alabama graduate, Ms. Hollub joined Occidental in 1982 and soon found herself running operations in Russia and Venezuela. She almost got laid off in 2003, but Todd Stevens, an executive at the company who had followed her rise, arranged for her to lead a team evaluating acreage in Colorado, said Mr. Stevens, who has since left.
霍勒布毕业于阿拉巴马大学,1982年加入西方石油,不久便被派往俄罗斯和委内瑞拉负责业务运营。2003年她险些被裁员,但已离职的公司前高管托德·史蒂文斯表示,他当时一直关注她的成长轨迹,并安排她领导一个在科罗拉多评估油气区块的团队。

Ms. Hollub became known as a hard worker, once spending three weeks straightening out operations at a new gas field’s first well, said Donnie Enns, a former geophysicist who worked under her. “Nobody worked harder than Vicki,” he said. She also found time to run an office March Madness basketball pool.
霍勒布以勤奋闻名。她曾花三周时间整顿一个新天然气田的首口井作业。曾在她手下工作的地球物理学家唐尼·恩斯表示:“没有人比维姬更拼命。”她甚至还能抽空在办公室组织三月疯狂篮球竞猜。

。。。

Every day, Ms. Hollub would drive to Occidental’s Houston offices in her red Jeep Wrangler, said Glenn Vangolen, a former senior vice president at Occidental and close adviser to the CEO. Mondays and Fridays, she and her lieutenants would mask up and gather in a conference room to discuss operations. Her office was spartan—a mostly bare room, except for a TV playing business news on mute, and a plush stuffed version of a costumed elephant, the Alabama Crimson Tide’s mascot, Mr. Vangolen said.
西方石油前高级副总裁、霍勒布的亲密顾问格伦·范戈伦表示,霍勒布每天都驾驶她的红色Jeep牧马人前往休斯敦办公室。每逢周一和周五,她与高管团队会戴着口罩在会议室开会,讨论运营事务。她的办公室布置极为简朴——几乎空无一物,只有一台静音播放财经新闻的电视,以及一只穿着服装的毛绒象玩具,这是她母校阿拉巴马大学“深红浪潮”队的吉祥物。
高能量的“Basic mistrust”,“忘记目标后的加倍努力”,在"值不值得"这个问题上容易被目标本身遮蔽判断的人?

(1)有没有越过不可控的边界?

巴菲特应该很清楚Vicki Hollub的问题,但我认为他对OXY的判断首先是对石油的判断,其次是管理团队,巴菲特多次强调Vicki Hollub工程技术出身,不是财务出身,比如,贾跃亭,专业能力是从上市公司挪用资金,在美国,在这样的“人才”只多不少。

BRK从2022Q1开始买入OXY的普通股,这需要一个采取行动的点,我想大部分原因跟石油有关,但是对于管理团队的基本判断也是少不了的,参考:《2022-05-02 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
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— you know, it's because things developed in a way — And in the case of Occidental specifically, they'd had an analyst presentation of some — I don't know whether it was a quarterly one or what it was exactly — but I read it over a weekend — and that was the weekend when the annual report came out — I read it over a weekend. And what [CEO] Vicki Hollub was saying made nothing but sense. And I decided that it was a good place to put Berkshire's money. And then I found out in the ensuing two weeks — it was there in black and white — there was nothing mysterious about it — but Vicki was saying what the company had gone through and where it was now and what they planned to do with the money. And she'll do what — she says she doesn't know the price of oil next year. Nobody does. But we decided it made sense. And two weeks later, we had 14% of the company. And we also already had a preferred stock and warrants.
——你知道,是因为事情的发展有其特定的节奏。就Occidental而言,他们做了一次分析师报告——我不确定是季度报告还是什么——但我利用一个周末读完了它——正好那个周末年报也出来了——我就在那个周末读完的。Vicki Hollub(CEO)说的每一句话都无比清晰合理。我决定这是一个值得投入Berkshire资金的好地方。接下来的两周里,我进一步印证了这个判断——白纸黑字,没有任何神秘之处——Vicki说的是公司经历了什么、现在处于什么位置、以及他们打算如何运用资金。至于她会做到什么程度——她说她不知道明年的油价。没有人知道。但我们判断这是合理的。两周后,我们持有了这家公司14%的股份。而我们此前已经持有了优先股和认股权证。
这段评价可以压缩成3个点,巴菲特在这里需要确认的是管理团队有没有可能毁灭资本?他需要看到一些“模糊正确”的边界。
  1. 公司经历了什么、现在处于什么位置?
比较完整的表述出现在2025年,但是2021年的年报已经有相类似的表述,参考:《2025-05-07 Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Inc. (OXY) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript》
Vicki Hollub

Okay. I'll answer the second question first. And that is that I just want to go back and share with you some of what we've done to get our portfolio to where it is today. Going way back in time about 10 years ago, we were only producing about 650,000 BOE per day. Now our production is 1.39 million barrels per day. In 2015, 50% of our production was from international locations. Today, 83% is in the United States. We exited several countries but stayed only in the countries that are business focused and where we can see significant upside. In 2015, our oil and gas resources totaled $8 billion, with $2.2 billion of that improved. But today, we have $14 billion of total resources, oil resources with $4.6 billion in proved reserves. And in 2015, only 16% of our proved reserves and 25% of our total resources were shale. The rest was conventional. And today, 60% of our proved reserves and 55% of our total resources are shale. So what we've done over the past 10 years is we've taken our portfolio and expanded significantly in the shale so that we have more than a decade, maybe up to 15 years of development in the shale. But what people don't usually get is that we also have -- in addition to the shale, we have about $6 billion identified today of resources and conventional areas around our country -- I mean, our company. So right now that -- and I believe that $6 billion of additional resources is light when you consider the fact that we're doing AI work in the Gulf of Mexico -- or Gulf of America.
好的,我先回答第二个问题。我想回顾一下我们如何把资产组合发展到今天的水平。大约 10 年前,我们的日产量仅约 65 万桶油当量;如今达到 139 万桶。2015 年,我们 50% 的产量来自海外,如今 83% 位于美国。我们退出了若干国家,只保留具有商业聚焦并具备显著上行潜力的市场。2015 年,我们的油气资源总量为 80 亿桶,其中 22 亿桶已探明;今天,我们拥有 140 亿桶总资源量,其中已探明储量 46 亿桶。2015 年,页岩仅占探明储量的 16%、总资源的 25%;现在,页岩占探明储量 60%、总资源 55%。过去 10 年里,我们大幅扩展页岩资产,足以支撑逾 10 年、甚至 15 年的开发。但往往被忽视的是,除页岩外,我们目前还识别出约 60 亿桶常规资源,我指的是公司范围内的常规区块。我认为这 60 亿桶的估计仍偏保守,特别考虑到我们正在美国湾(墨西哥湾)开展的 AI 工作。
很多人分不清事实和叙事之间的区别,如果把另一组数据放进来可能就会明白一些,2015-2025年,OXY、CVX、XOM的股价回报分别是:-39.1%、+69.4%、+54.4%。这显然是风险,但还不是问题的边界,Vicki Hollub在财务上的激进做法有没有一个“说得通”的逻辑?这是巴菲特想确认的事实。
  1. 打算如何运用资金?
2021-2022年是疫情后油价大幅度反弹的年份,巴菲特是想看一看,油企赚到钱以后是怎么想的,他在1987年的股东信里有过非常形象的描述:“每当短缺出现,典型经理人就迫不及待扩张产能,去堵住那个“金钱正从中倾泻而下”的洞”,在经过页岩油过度投资和疫情期间负油价的洗礼后,OXY和其他的油企都意识到“先增产、后谈回报”的模式是有问题的,参考:《2022-02-25 Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript》
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It is our goal to reward shareholders with a triple benefit of a sustainable common benefit, an active share repurchase program and a continuously strengthening financial position.
我们的目标是以三重回报回馈股东:可持续的普通股股息、积极的股票回购计划,以及持续改善的财务状况。
  1. 会做到什么程度?
是不是承认油价是不能预测的?这一点对OXY是有难度的(已经在坑里了),但是Vicki Hollub的评论中还是有所涉及,参考:《2022-02-25 Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript》
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The optionality that our scale and asset base provide enables us to retain a high degree of flexibility in our capital and spending plans. The majority of our capital program is comprised of short-cycle investments, meaning that we have the ability to quickly adapt to changes in the macro environment. Within six months or less, if necessary, we can reduce capital spending to sustaining levels. And if oil prices remain supportive this year, our intent is to follow our cash flow priorities and capital framework that we will share with you today. We have no need and no intent to invest in production growth this year.
我们的规模和资产基础所赋予的灵活性,使我们能够在资本和支出计划上保持高度弹性。我们资本计划的大部分由短周期投资构成,这意味着我们能够迅速适应宏观环境的变化。如有必要,我们可以在六个月或更短的时间内将资本支出削减至维持性水平。如果今年油价保持支撑态势,我们的意图是遵循我们今天将与大家分享的现金流优先级和资本框架。今年我们没有必要、也没有意图投资于产量增长。
"六个月"不是模糊的表态,管理层知道自己在说什么。

(2)在忘记目标后加倍努力

如果从后视镜观察,巴菲特当时最好的选择是不理会OXY100亿美元的优先股,他自己也说石油股的关键变量是油价,如果看好未来的油价走势不应该贪图优先股的便宜,直接买入质量更好的油企,比如,Chevron。

在BRK借出100亿美元的优先股后就遇上了疫情,油价跌到负数,这笔优先股出现大幅度的减值,并且,这中间也可能让他对OXY管理团队的风险有了更深的理解。
  1. 2019年4月30日:Berkshire 承诺投入 100 亿美元,支持 OXY 竞购 Anadarko。
条款是:Berkshire 认购 100,000 股累计永续优先股,每股清算价值 100,000 美元,合计 100 亿美元;股息 8%/年,若股息应计未付,则该部分按 9% 计;同时获得一张认股权证,可购买 最多 8,000 万股 OXY 普通股,行权价 62.50 美元/股。优先股自发行满 10 年后,OXY 才可按 105% 面值 + 累计未付股息 自愿赎回;另有特定资本回报事件触发的强制赎回条款。
  1. 2019年8月8日:Anadarko 收购完成,Berkshire 的优先股和权证正式落地。
OXY 完成 Anadarko 收购的同时,Berkshire 的 100 亿美元优先股 + 8,000 万股权证 也正式发行并交割。
  1. 2020年6月26日:Berkshire 权证发生反稀释调整。
由于 OXY 后续向普通股股东发放新权证,Berkshire 原始权证条款被调整为:可购买 83,858,848.81 股 OXY 普通股,行权价降为 59.624 美元/股。这也是后来市场通常引用的那张权证口径。
  1. 2022年3月4日—3月11日:Berkshire 开始快速买入 OXY 普通股。
按 OXY 2022 proxy 引用的 SEC 申报,截至 2022 年 3 月 4 日,Berkshire 实益持有 91,162,995 股 OXY 普通股;截至 2022 年 3 月 11 日,增至 118,270,384 股。Berkshire 的持股(含权证对应股份)达到 220,231,848.81 股,占比 21.6%。
  1. 2022年8月19日:FERC 批准 Berkshire 最多可买到 OXY 普通股的 50%。
Berkshire 是在 2022年7月11日 向 FERC 提交申请的;获批时,Berkshire 已持有 188,366,460 股 OXY 普通股,约占 20.2%,并且仍持有 100 亿美元优先股 和前述权证。
  1. 2023年3月:OXY 触发优先股强制赎回条款。
合同里有一个很重要的约束:在 2029 年 8 月之前,OXY 不能主动自愿赎回这批优先股;但如果 OXY 在过去 12 个月里向普通股股东分配(分红或回购)超过 每股 4 美元,就必须按 面值 110% 的价格,逐美元对应地强制赎回优先股。Berkshire 在 2023 年一季报披露,2023年3月 OXY 已经发出强制赎回通知,对应 4.74 亿美元清算价值 的优先股,赎回价是 110% 清算价值 + 应计未付股息;随后 2023年6月30日至9月29日,OXY 又累计赎回了 7,067 股 Series A 优先股,价格是 110,000 美元/股。到 2023 年末,Berkshire 持有的 OXY 优先股清算价值约 85 亿美元,权证仍是 8386万股、59.62 美元行权价。
  1. 2023年12月10日/11日:OXY 签署并公布 CrownRock 收购协议。
交易总对价初始口径约 120 亿美元,构成为:91 亿美元现金、29,560,619 股 OXY 普通股、以及承担约 12 亿美元 CrownRock 既有债务。现金部分还要做多项调整,包括:营运资本调整、卖方在生效日至交割日间拿走现金的负向调整、产权/环境缺陷调整,以及 OXY 在签约到交割期间若派发现金股息的正向调整。OXY 同时宣布,拟通过 91 亿美元新债 + 约 17 亿美元普通股 来完成融资,并计划启动 45–60 亿美元剥离计划,承诺在交割后 12 个月内至少降债 45 亿美元。
  1. 2024年8月1日:CrownRock 交割完成。
最终交易口径细化为 124 亿美元,构成为:约 94 亿美元现金、约 2960 万股 OXY 普通股、承担 12 亿美元 CrownRock 既有债务。实际融资落地为:50 亿美元 senior notes、20 亿美元 364-day term loan、27 亿美元 two-year term loan。
  1. 2025年2月18日:第一阶段修表兑现。
OXY 宣布,其已在 2024 年四季度 达成此前承诺的 45 亿美元 近端降债目标,也就是在 CrownRock 于 2024 年 8 月 1 日 交割后 5 个月内 完成,比原本“12 个月内完成”的目标提前了 7 个月;同时又签了 12 亿美元 资产剥离协议,用于偿还 2025 年到期债务。
  1. 2025年8月6日:继续卖资产、继续降债。
OXY 披露,自 2024 年 7 月 以来,已累计偿还约 75 亿美元债务;自 2023 年 12 月宣布收购 CrownRock 以来,累计资产剥离约 40 亿美元;并新增几笔 Permian 资产出售,合计约 9.5 亿美元,继续用于降债。
  1. 2025年10月2日:宣布把 OxyChem 卖给 Berkshire。
交易价格为 97 亿美元现金,但仍需 customary purchase price adjustments;OXY 明确表示,其中 65 亿美元 将用于把本金债务降到 150 亿美元以下。同时,OXY 保留 OxyChem 的部分历史 tort claims 和环境责任。这一步相当于把 CrownRock 之后的深度修表做完。
  1. 2026年1月2日:OxyChem 出售完成。
OXY 当天宣布,已完成把 OxyChem 以 97 亿美元现金 卖给 Berkshire 的交易,仍受 purchase price adjustments 约束;并再次确认,OXY 保留了 OxyChem 的部分历史环境责任。
  1. 2026年2月18日:修表结果落地。
OXY 披露,OxyChem sale 于 2026 年 1 月 2 日 完成后,使公司自 2025 年 12 月中旬以来 的债务减少了 58 亿美元,并把本金债务带到 150 亿美元。

Vicki Hollub在两次大型收购中的性格特征非常稳定,都是迫不及待把资产买进来,把资产负债表推到悬崖的边缘,再想办法卖资产。有些小朋友遇到喜欢的玩具非要不可,父母不给买就赖在地上撒泼打滚,巴菲特的处理方式像一个成熟的家长:给一些自由,但也不能让她立刻把家拆了。
  1. 可能很快发现错了
2019年8月,OXY从BRK借入100亿美元的优先股,次年的2020年就发生疫情,油价跌到负值,危机会放大管理团队本身就有的缺陷,后面的几个动作明显属于补救的行为。
  1. 买入Chevron
BRK在2020Q4买入4850万股的Chevron,平均成本80.96美元,总计39亿美元。巴菲特在投资OXY时对于石油应该有一个基本的判断,但是OXY显然缺少韧性,无论是资产负债表还是管理团队,如果只是买入OXY,那么Right Business和Right People的判断可能同时毁在同一个公司里,但如果再买入Chevron就可以起到风险上的对冲,Right People的判断错了,至少还能保证Right Business的判断的有效性。
  1. 控制整个公司
疫情过后的2022Q1,OXY已经挺过最危险的时期,BRK开始买入OXY的普通股;到2022年8月,FERC 批准BRK最多可买到 OXY 普通股的 50%;1年后的2023年12月,OXY对外公布收购CrownRock,同一个剧情再次上演;2025年10月,OXY宣布把OxyChem卖给BRK,让Vicki Hollub拆家的本事有一个护栏。

3、Correct facts

Info
你之所以正确,是因为你的事实和推理是正确的,要尽量确保掌握的事实是正确的,然后一旦掌握了事实,必须弄清这些事实意味着什么?不需要关注不重要的事实;有些事实重要但不可知,也不需要关注;真正需要关注的是重要并且可知(important and knowable)的事实。
周期性波动的产品只有在短缺的时候能真正赚到钱,但如果纯粹赌短缺的概率,风险很大。巴菲特在此以前买过ConocoPhillips,20025Q4首次建仓,2007/2008年油价处于历史高从位时大幅加仓,8000多万股,总成本70亿美元,最后为了给3笔优先股(Wrigley、Goldman Sachs、GE)腾出资金亏损卖掉,公司在 2009Q1 末对这笔投资计提了约 $3.0B 税前减值(约 $1.9B 税后)。

供需紧平衡的特点同时作用于油价的下行和上行,但是页岩油为下行提供了某种程度的保护,这是2010年以前不存在的事实,因为页岩油的成本和特点,油价上行,不见得愿意扩大产能,前10年就因为缺少资本纪律没有赚到钱;油价下行,快速关停设备、削减资本支出,亏损的真实性要清晰得多。

上行收益跟国际局势有关,巴菲特一直强调OXY的大部分油气资源在美国本土。

(1)自由现金流盈亏平衡油价(FCF Breakeven WTI)

盈亏平衡油价的计算不能直接引用财报上的数据,口径不统一,并且都有自说自画的成分。替代的方法是用过去3年CFO(经营现金流)、Capex(资本开支)的平均数和WTI 现货年均价做一个测算。

breakeven WTI= 3年平均 WTI × 3年平均Capex÷ 3年平均CFO

3年平均 WTI:2022≈$94,2023≈$77,2024≈$77,均值 $83,以下是根据XOM、CVX、OXY、CNOOC的比较。
公司3年平均Capex3年平均OCFCapex/OCF近似盈亏平衡WTI
XOM$21.5B$62.4B0.344≈ $29
CVX$14.7B$38.9B0.378≈ $31
OXY$5.7B$13.6B0.419≈ $35
CNOOC$15.9B$29.9B0.532≈ $44

上面只是粗糙的计算,特别是Capex,这里面既包括维持存量的支出,也包括增加产量的支出,以下是2022年的产量为基数,2023/2024 年超出基数的那部分产量,按比例对应的资本支出视为 growth capex,从分子里剔除,剩下的才是 sustaining capex。
公司2022202320243年均值
XOM$18.4B$21.9B × (3700/3700) = $21.9B$24.3B × (3700/4300) = $20.9B$20.4B
CVX$12.0B$15.8B × (3000/3120) = $15.2B$16.4B × (3000/3300) = $14.9B$14.0B
OXY$4.2B$6.2B × (1158/1223) = $5.9B$6.8B × (1158/1330) = $5.9B$5.3B
CNOOC$13.4B$17.0B × (1708/1857) = $15.6B$17.4B × (1708/1991) = $14.9B$14.6B

重新计算的结果如下:
公司均值Sustaining Capex均值OCF比率维持性盈亏平衡WTI对比总资本支出口径
XOM$20.4B$62.4B0.327≈ $27$29 → -$2
CVX$14.0B$38.9B0.360≈ $30$31 → -$1
OXY$5.3B$13.6B0.390≈ $32$35 → -$3
CNOOC$14.6B$29.9B0.488≈ $40$44 → -$4

美国几家油企的盈亏平衡点相差无几,中海油差一些,但是中海油的天然气可以卖出更高的价格,是美国市场的3倍的价格。

(2)资产负债表的韧性

BRK的相关企业中有一个可以参考的对象是BNSF,参考:《2016-02-27 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》
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A key characteristic of both companies is their huge investment in very long-lived, regulated assets, with these partially funded by large amounts of long-term debt that is not guaranteed by Berkshire. Our credit is in fact not needed because each company has earning power that even under terrible economic conditions would far exceed its interest requirements. Last year, for example, in a disappointing year for railroads, BNSF’s interest coverage was more than 8:1. (Our definition of coverage is the ratio of earnings before interest and taxes to interest, not EBITDA/interest, a commonly used measure we view as seriously flawed.)
这两家公司的一个关键特征是,它们在受监管且使用寿命极长的资产上进行了巨额投资,其中部分以大量长期债务融资,而这些债务并未由伯克希尔提供担保。事实上,我们的信用并不需要介入,因为即使在极度不利的经济环境下,每家公司也具有远高于其利息支出需求的盈利能力。例如,在铁路业表现令人失望的去年,BNSF 的利息保障倍数仍超过 8 倍。(我们对“保障倍数”的定义是息税前利润与利息的比值,而非业内常用、我们认为存在严重缺陷的 EBITDA/利息。)
以下是各家公司2024年的数据,WTI平均油价是83美元。
公司税前利润利息费用EBIT优先股股息利息支出覆盖倍数
XOM$48.9B$1.0B$49.9B≈ 50倍
CVX$27.5B$0.6B$28.1B≈ 47倍
OXY$4.0B$1.2B$5.2B$0.7B≈ 2.8倍
CNOOC~$26.5B~$1.2B~$27.7B≈ 23倍

某一年EBIT的参考价值不大,2020年是比较好的可以用来做压力测试的年份(WTI平均油价39.17美元),当年除CNOOC以外,因为存在大额的资产减值,其他几家油企的税前利润都是负数,以下的数据对比中用CFO代替之前的EBIT。
公司CFO利息费用优先股股息利息支出覆盖倍数
XOM$14.7B$1.16B≈ 12.7倍
CVX$10.6B$0.74B≈ 14.4倍
OXY$4.0B$1.42B$0.84B≈ 1.7倍
CNOOC~$11.9B~$0.68B≈ 17.5倍

OXY的情况非常特别,Vicki Hollub有可能的想法是资产负债表不是问题,大家赚的都是挖油的钱,油田是自己的或者借钱买来的差别不大,但问题是利息是刚性的,这跟银行挤兑的风险是一样的,安全边际不够、还不上利息就需要贱卖资产。

更有意思的是反复上演也不觉得是个问题,可以解释成思维方式的“一致性”,非常稳定,始终不认为是个风险。

(3)购买日产1万桶的石油产量,哪个公司的价格最便宜?

以下是2024年的数据。
公司股价 (2024-12-31)流通股市值2024年日产量每万桶/天价格
XOM$103.76~42.9亿股~$445B430万桶≈ $10.3亿
CVX~$153~18.4亿股~$282B330万桶≈ $8.5亿
OXY~$47~9.7亿股~$46B133万桶≈ $3.5亿
CNOOC~HK$19~475亿股~$116B199万桶≈ $5.8亿

换一种计算的方式,用企业价值(EV = 市值 + 净债务)可能更准确,净债务:XOM ~$10B,CVX ~$21B,OXY ~$24B,CNOOC ~$5B(估算),重新计算后的结果如下:
公司EV日产量每万桶/天EV
XOM~$455B430万桶≈ $10.6亿
CVX~$303B330万桶≈ $9.2亿
OXY~$70B133万桶≈ $5.3亿
CNOOC~$121B199万桶≈ $6.1亿

如果买的都是1万桶的原油,这个资产的CFO和油价之间呈现什么样的关系,以2022-2024年的数据为例做数据上的对比,WTI的平均油价:2022 = $94.90,2023 = $77.58,2024 = $76.63。
公司2022 每桶CFO2023 每桶CFO2024 每桶CFO2022→2023:每 $1 WTI 变化,对每桶CFO变化2022→2024:每 $1 WTI 变化,对每桶CFO变化
XOM56.3040.5834.690.911.18
CVX45.3131.2725.780.811.07
OXY39.7327.6123.480.700.89
CNOOC46.4243.5742.810.160.20

CNOOC的情况比较特殊,有一些公共事业公司的特点,大致有两个原因:
  1. CNOOC的天然气是长期协议,价格不跟着市场走,并且通常比美国市场卖的更贵,以2024年为例,美国市场是$2.21/MMBtu,中国市场是$7.44/MMBtu,3.37倍,天然气占CNOOC总销售的20%;
  2. 暴利税(Special Oil Gain Levy),CNOOC 年报写得很清楚:对中国境内原油月度加权平均售价中高于$65/桶的部分,按 20%–40% 累进税率征收。对应金额分别是 2022 年 RMB24.214bn、2023 年 RMB9.517bn、2024 年 RMB8.297bn,这会直接削掉高油价年份的上行弹性。

(4)石油短缺对于油价的影响

因战争导致石油短缺最容易观察,历史上对国际油价造成重大影响的是1970-80年,以及1990-1991年的海湾战争,以下是上述战争和正在发生的中东战争做的比较:
事件冲击占全球比例油价反应备注
1973–1974 十月战争 / OAPEC 禁运净冲击约 4.3 mb/d约 7.5%$2.90 → $11.65/桶历史上第一次石油被明确武器化;常用口径是全球市场被拿掉约 4.3 mb/d。
1978–1980 伊朗革命毛冲击约 4.8 mb/d;净冲击约 4%–5%毛冲击约 7%$13 → $34/桶这次更典型地说明:即使净缺口只有 4%–5%,恐慌、补库存和预期变化也能把价格推得远高于供给缺口本身。
1990–1991 海湾危机(伊拉克入侵科威特)净冲击约 4.3 mb/dBrent $17 → $36/桶供给缺口绝对量和 1973 接近,但价格持续时间更短,随后随着战争推进和应急释放而回落。
2026 Hormuz / 中东战争基线流量约 20 mb/d;已实现净冲击约 8–10 mb/d基线流量约占全球消费 20%Brent 一度逼近 $120/桶20 mb/d 是海峡正常承载流量,不等于净损失;IEA 口径下,已实现的供应冲击规模已显著高于 1973、1979、1990 这几次经典事件。
  1. 1973、1979、1990 这三次经典石油危机,落到全球市场上的净缺口,常见量级都在 4–5 mb/d 左右。但价格反应可以是 2 倍、3 倍、甚至接近 4 倍,因为市场交易的不是“今天少了多少桶”,而是“未来会不会继续少、会不会蔓延、库存够不够、别人会不会抢货”。1979 就是最典型的例子:净缺口只有 4%–5%,但价格从 $13 涨到 $34。
  1. 1990-91年海湾战争,伊拉克入侵科威特导致两国产量瞬间从市场消失,油价从15美元跳涨至40美元以上。但战争结束之快超出市场预期,价格迅速回落。冲击是真实的,但持续时间短,没有结构性影响。
  1. 今天 Hormuz 的危险性大于1979年,不在于它已经稳定拿掉了 20% 的全球供给,而在于它卡住了一个占全球消费约 20% 的运输命门。这意味着一旦中断持续,哪怕最终净损失没有达到 20%,只要净缺口落在 8–10 mb/d 这个区间,规模也已经显著高于 1973、1979、1990 那几次经典事件。IEA 直接把这次称为“the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market”。
  1. 其余几次:对油价基本没有实质影响
    1. 1948、1956、1967:当时全球石油市场由西方石油公司主导,OPEC尚未形成有效定价权,中东冲突对油价传导机制很弱。1956年苏伊士运河危机有短暂影响,但很快被其他供应覆盖。
    2. 2003年伊拉克战争:油价上涨,但主要驱动是中国需求爆发和全球经济复苏,战争是次要因素。
    3. 2006年黎巴嫩战争:规模太小,完全没有供应中断。
    4. 2011后叙利亚:叙利亚本身产量微不足道,影响可忽略。

4、Sound reasoning

Info
在这个行业里,你永远不会得到一个最终答案,你只是到达一个需要采取行动的时点。我们只是尽量选择那些我们认为成功概率最高的事情去做,并按照同样的方式继续参与这个游戏,但最终的结果往往会和你原先想象的不同。

(1)PE(FWD)是不是低于15倍?

观察BRK最近的几次加仓,比如:
  1. 2024-12-17,买了866万股的OXY,价格是46.54,2024年EPS是3.46,PE=13.45;
  2. 2025Q4,买了809万股的CVX,价格是152.27,2025年EPS是7.29,PE=20.89,这笔交易的PE偏高,2025年股价最低点出现在4月份,126.35美元,PE=17.33。

(2)未来五年有90%的信心成为更赚钱的公司(EPS是增长的)?

WTI 年均油价,2024 = $76.63,2025 = $65.39,巴菲特认为未来5年国际油价有90%以上的可能性会高于60-70的区间,有一个可以实证的逻辑,页岩油的平衡油价是65美元/桶,那么油价处于这个位置的时候,油企是不是倾向于扩大产能?
公司净利润资本开支(现金口径)FCF分红金额回购金额
XOM$28.8B$29.0B≈$23.0B$17.2B$20.0B
CVX$12.3B$17.3B≈$16.6B$12.8B$12.1B
OXY$1.65B$7.49B≈$3.05B$1.446B$0.027B
CNOOCRMB 122.1BRMB 111.6B≈RMB 97.5B≈HK$66.07B

XOM、CVX的分红+回购的金额都大于当年的FCF,OXY的报表不支持扩张,稳定扩张产能的是CNOOC,但也不是激进扩张的情况。以下是几家企业的股息率。
公司adjusted EPS(2025)2025 实际支付股息金额2025 股息率年末股价对应 PE
XOM6.99$4.00 /股3.35%$119.5417.1x
CVX7.32$6.84 /股4.53%$150.9320.6x
OXY2.21$0.94 /股≈2.30%$40.9318.5x
CNOOCHK$2.86HK$1.39 /股6.48%HK$21.46≈7.5x

(3)至少50%信心实现每年7%的增长?

石油的上行收益很可能跟国际局势有关,BRK投资团队中的Ted Weschler在一次访谈中讲到了这个因素:《2022-04-27 Ted Weschler.Spoke about his investing career.》
Quote
This last go-round, the tragedy of Russia-Ukraine, that really did rattle the markets. That’s the sort of thing that I think we’re in a better position to assess because there has been similar things that have happened in the last 125 years that you can say, “How does this play out? And, probability adjusted, what sort of outcomes can you have?”And we’ve made some public announcements in the last thirty days of things that we’re investing in[25]. We’ve moved some money in the last couple of months.
这最后一轮,俄罗斯-乌克兰的悲剧确实震动了市场。这种事情我认为我们更有能力去评估,因为在过去的 125 年里发生过类似的事情,你可以说:“这将如何发展?经过概率调整,你能得到什么样的结果?”在过去的三十天里,我们做了一些关于我们投资的公开声明[25]。在过去的几个月里,我们转移了一些资金。
Idea
2022年倒推125年是1897年,即第一次希土战争,第一次世界大战的前奏,BRK从2022Q1开始买入OXY。
从1897年往回推,中东地区发生过:1948、1956、1967、1973的以阿战争,1978–79年伊朗革命,1980-88两伊战争,1990-91海湾战争,2003伊拉克战争,2006黎巴嫩战争,2011后的叙利亚,也门战争至今。

粗略估算,在任意一个10年窗口内,中东发生某种形式的武装冲突的概率接近100%,如果发生冲突后油价上涨100%的概率是80%,石油股投资的数学期望值=7%(PE=15倍)+7%*80%(10年内油价上涨1倍)=12.6%。

Appendix

Appendix.1.雪球博主算的细账

《2023-12-01 中国海油为何这么低估?》:当时中国海油12.82港元,今日21.25,上涨幅度=(21.25-12.82)/12.82=65.75%,很准确的判断。

《2023-11-07 海油的天然气业务安全边际极强》:中国海油的巨大优势是天然气业务,同样的天然气,美国卖14.32美元/桶,在中国卖46.4美元/桶,原因是全球最大的LNG消费地是东亚三国,中国海油离LNG的消费地更近,并且在美国页岩油的产能中NGL和天然气占比将近50%。

《2023-12-04 海油VS美页岩油气桶利润&细节中藏着魔鬼的方向》:美国页岩油产能中的NGL和天然气占比越来越高。

《2023-10-26 美国页岩油作为世界最大边际产量对油价钝化意味着什么?:过去10年全球油价稳定来自美国页岩油的增产,2010-2022年全球石油需求从8670万桶/天变成9960万桶/天,每天需求增加了1290万桶,同时期美国页岩油的产能从0增长到950万桶/天,贡献了增长部分的70%。

《2023-03-08 U.S. Shale Boom Shows Signs of Peaking as Big Oil Wells Disappear:美国页岩油的产能在疫情前爬上高峰后已经出现下滑,油价维持在高位也不起作用了,越挖越少。

《2024-05-06 43-93美元布油区间的中海油净利润匡算:18.58港元的股份对应8040亿人民币的市值,市值减2024年半年报的净现金1900亿是6140亿人民币,作者以2023年为基准推算油价对年度净利润的影响,假设布伦特70美元,2023年平均油价是83美元,影响有两部分组成。
  1. 一是对收入的影响=7.23亿桶x78%(石油占78%,天然气占22%)x-13美元X7.1(汇率)X75%(扣除企业所得税)=-391亿;
  2. 二是对浮动税费的影响,油价下跌浮动税费跟着下降140亿,合计=1588-391+140=1337亿,对应PE是4.59倍。
《2024-08-31 质变飞跃的中海油:中国海油的重要进步发生在2019年以后,包括:
  1. 内部效率提升导致的桶成本下降,2017年以前的38.5美元/桶下降到2023年的29.2美元/桶(剔除资源税、附加税以后是24.8美元/桶);
  2. 日产量从2018年的124万桶提升到2023年的186万桶,5年增长62万桶(增长50%),对比2013年108万,到2018年的124桶,6年时间增加了16万桶(权增长15%);
  3. 国内天然气价格在2020年进行了市场化改革,新的长协价格水涨船高。
  1. 西方石油,2024年上半年平均日产量:石油55.3万桶/每天,NGL24.9万桶/每天,天然气137.1/6=22.85万桶当量/每天,合计103万桶/每天,产量结构占比石油53.7%,NGL24.2%,天然气22.1%,在美国的实现售价:石油79.79美元/桶,NGL20.19美元/桶,天然气0.54X6=3.24美元/桶,所以2024年上半年西方石油的页岩油气综合实现售价=79.79 X53.7% +20.19X24.2%+3.24X22.1%=48.45美元/每桶当量,而桶成本接近40美元,这是西方石油低毛利率的根本原因;
  2. 中国海洋石油,2024年上半年中海油的石油实现售价80.32美元,天然气价格实现售价46.76美元/每桶当量,中海油的石油产量占比78.15%,天然气占比21.85%,油气加权实现售价=80.32X78.15%+46.76X21.85%=75.2美元每桶当量,非税桶23.65美元每桶,每桶毛利51.7美元/桶,加上资源税、附加税、暴利税和所得税,每桶净利润31美元。

Appendix.2.《2009-02-27 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》

I told you in an earlier part of this report that last year I made a major mistake of commission (and maybe more; this one sticks out). Without urging from Charlie or anyone else, I bought a large amount of ConocoPhillips stock when oil and gas prices were near their peak. I in no way anticipated the dramatic fall in energy prices that occurred in the last half of the year. I still believe the odds are good that oil sells far higher in the future than the current $40-$50 price. But so far I have been dead wrong. Even if prices should rise, moreover, the terrible timing of my purchase has cost Berkshire several billion dollars.
我在本报告前面部分告诉过你们:去年我犯了一个重大的“该做不该做”的错误(mistake of commission)(也许不止一个;但这个最扎眼)。在没有 Charlie 或任何人怂恿的情况下,我在油气价格接近峰值时买入了大量 ConocoPhillips 的股票。我完全没有预料到下半年能源价格会出现如此剧烈的下跌。我仍然认为,从概率上看,未来油价很可能会远高于当前 40-50 美元的水平。但截至目前,我彻彻底底错了。更何况,即便价格将来上涨,我买入时点之糟糕,也已经让 Berkshire 付出了数十亿美元的代价。

I made some other already-recognizable errors as well. They were smaller, but unfortunately not that small. During 2008, I spent $244 million for shares of two Irish banks that appeared cheap to me. At yearend we wrote these holdings down to market: $27 million, for an 89% loss. Since then, the two stocks have declined even further. The tennis crowd would call my mistakes “unforced errors.”
我还犯了一些其他“现在就已经一眼可见”的错误。它们规模更小,但遗憾的是,也没小到可以忽略。2008 年,我花了 2.44 亿美元买了两家爱尔兰银行的股票,当时在我看来很便宜。到年末,我们按市价把这两笔持仓写到了 2,700 万美元,亏损 89%。此后,这两只股票又进一步下跌。网球圈会把我的错误称为“非受迫性失误”(unforced errors)。

On the plus side last year, we made purchases totaling $14.5 billion in fixed-income securities issued by Wrigley, Goldman Sachs and General Electric. We very much like these commitments, which carry high current yields that, in themselves, make the investments more than satisfactory. But in each of these three purchases, we also acquired a substantial equity participation as a bonus. To fund these large purchases, I had to sell portions of some holdings that I would have preferred to keep (primarily Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and ConocoPhillips). However, I have pledged — to you, the rating agencies and myself — to always run Berkshire with more than ample cash. We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow’s obligations. When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night’s sleep for the chance of extra profits.
去年也有好的一面:我们合计买入了 145 亿美元的固定收益证券,发行人包括 Wrigley、Goldman Sachs 与 General Electric。我们非常喜欢这些投资承诺:它们的当期收益率很高,单就这一点就已经足够让投资“令人满意”。但在这三笔投资中,我们还额外获得了相当可观的股权参与,算是“赠品”。为了筹措资金来完成这些大额买入,我不得不卖出一些我本来更愿意持有的仓位的一部分(主要是 Johnson & Johnson、Procter & Gamble 和 ConocoPhillips)。但我已经向你们、评级机构以及我自己承诺:Berkshire 永远要在现金上保持“绰绰有余”。我们从不希望为了满足明天的义务而去指望陌生人的善意。被迫做选择时,我不会为了多赚点利润,拿哪怕一晚上的睡眠去交换。

Appendix.3.《2011-04-30 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

WARREN BUFFETT: We’ll be there if you need brick in Alabama. (Laughter) You know, See’s Candy, a wonderful business, loses money roughly eight months of the year. Now, it just so happens we know the seasonal pattern, so we don’t worry in July that somehow Christmas won’t come, you know. We’ve got a couple thousand years on our side. (Laughter) So the — but that’s — you know, that’s easy to see. If you just looked at one month of See’s earnings or looked at one quarter, you’d think, what are these guys doing in this business? Now, obviously, cyclical businesses, you know, are not going to behave exactly the same as seasonal businesses, but why look at it any differently? I mean, if you take the next 20 years, there will be, you know, three or four terrible years for residential housing, and there will be a lot of them that are pretty good, and there will be a few that are terrific.
WARREN BUFFETT:如果你在 Alabama 需要砖头,我们会在那儿。(笑声)你知道,See’s Candy 是一门极好的生意,但它一年里大约有八个月是在亏钱的。只不过,我们恰好知道它的季节性规律,所以我们不会在七月担心是不是 Christmas 不会来了。毕竟我们这边可是有几千年的历史经验站在一边。(笑声)所以——不过这其实——你知道,这种情况是很容易看出来的。如果你只看 See’s 某一个月的盈利,或者只看一个季度,你会想,这帮家伙怎么会做这种生意?显然,周期性企业的表现不会和季节性企业完全一样,但为什么要用完全不同的方式去看它呢?我的意思是,如果你看未来 20 年,住宅房地产会有三四年非常糟糕,也会有很多年份相当不错,还会有少数几年特别好。

And I don’t know the order in which they’re going to appear, but I know if I can buy the assets cheap enough to participate in those 20 years, that we’ll do OK over that time. So that’s why we’re in the brick business.
而我不知道这些年份会按什么顺序出现,但我知道,只要我能以足够便宜的价格买下这些资产,从而参与这 20 年的过程,我们在这段时间里就会做得还不错。这就是为什么我们会做砖业生意。
Idea
对于周期性行业最好、也最通俗的解释。

Appendix.4.《2020-01-29 Charlie Munger.Spoke at the Redlands Forum in Southern California.》

CM: Warren and I have been together for so long that, with one grunt, we can speak a volume.
CM:沃伦和我在一起的时间太长了,以至于只要一哼,我们就能说出一大堆话。

It’s perfectly obvious that the Permian Basin is our #1 oil reservoir and we don’t have another one like it. And it’s perfectly obvious that [when you have] preferred stock[17], you have an advantage over everybody else — plus an upside. We’ve done this kind of thing before, too, so of course we did it. It’s not very difficult [to make that decision very quickly]. But, you’re right, there are all kinds of organizations with their endless due diligence. We knew enough to act — and, by the way, they were in a hurry.
很明显,二叠纪盆地是我们的第一大油藏,我们没有第二个这样的油藏。很明显,[当你拥有]优先股[17]时,你就拥有了超越其他人的优势,而且还有上升空间。我们以前也做过这种事,所以我们当然会这么做。迅速做出决定]并不难。但是,你说得没错,有各种各样的组织都在进行无休止的尽职调查。我们了解得足够多,因此采取了行动--顺便说一句,他们很着急。

JD: Based on the rules?
JD:根据规则?

CM: Yes. You don’t need perfect. If you’re 96% sure, that’s all you’re entitled to in many cases. I see these people doing this due diligence and the weaker they are as thinkers, the more due diligence they do. It’s a way of allaying an inner insecurity — but it doesn’t work. You’ve got to be able to quickly understand it.
CM: 是的。你不需要完美。如果你有 96% 的把握,在很多情况下,你就有资格这么做。我看到这些人在做尽职调查,他们的脑子越不行,做的尽职调查就越多。这是一种缓解内心不安全感的方法,但并不奏效。你必须能够快速理解它。

How much brains does it take to know that the Permian Basin[18] is America’s best oil reserve? It’s layer after layer after layer. There is nothing comparable [to it]. And if you have an 8% dividend off the top from a perfectly reputable place with very talented people. The woman (Vicki Hollub) who runs that is a production engineer — she’s good — and they get better results from that shale than other people. It’s a no-brainer. At least, it’s a no-brainer if you don’t make it hard.
需要多少聪明才智才能明白二叠纪盆地[18]是美国最好的石油储备地呢?那里有一层又一层的油层,没有什么地方能与之相比。而且,如果你能从一个非常有信誉的地方获得8%的股息,那里的团队非常有才华。领导那里的女性(Vicki Hollub)是一位生产工程师——她很出色——他们从页岩中获得的成果比其他人更好。这简直是个不费脑筋的决定。至少,如果你不把事情搞得复杂的话,这就是一个不费脑筋的决定。

In America, now, they do these leveraged buyouts and these firms do what they call due diligence. They will send armies of young lawyers out at high rates per hour to rifle through all of the purchasing orders at a place like Esri.
现在在美国,他们进行杠杆收购,这些公司会进行所谓的尽职调查。他们会派出大批年轻律师,以每小时高昂的费用,仔细查阅 Esri 等公司的所有采购订单。

JD: Don’t even think about it. (Laughs)
JD:想都别想。(笑)

CM: I’m not thinking about it. But my point is you don’t have to look through the purchasing orders to know that Esri is a good business. I don’t think people who are that insecure mentally ought to be in positions of decision-making power.
CM: 我没想过这个问题。但我想说的是,你不用看采购订单就知道 Esri 是一家好公司。我不认为那些心理上没有安全感的人应该掌握决策权。

Appendix.5.《2020-05-02 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

49. Low prices pose a risk to oil equity investments
低价格对石油股权投资构成风险

BECKY QUICK: Let me follow up with this one, and this one comes in from Mohnish Bahl, who says, "Is there a risk of permanent loss of capital in the oil equity investments?"
BECKY QUICK:让我就这个话题追问一下,这个问题来自 Mohnish Bahl,他问道:"石油股权投资是否存在资本永久损失的风险?"

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, there certainly is, you know — there's no question if — if oil stays at these prices, there's going to be a lot of money — a whole lot of money — in middle extended bank loans, and it'll affect the banking industry, to some degree, not — it doesn't destroy them or anything, but there's a lot of money that's been invested that was not invested based on a $17 or $20 or $25 price for WTI, West Texas Intermediate oil, and —
WARREN BUFFETT:这当然是存在的,你知道——毫无疑问,如果——如果油价维持在这个水平,那么在中期展期银行贷款里,将会有大量的——非常大量的——资金出问题,这会在一定程度上影响银行业,不过——不会摧毁它们或者怎样,但有大量已经投入的资金,当初并不是基于 WTI 西德克萨斯中质原油17美元、20美元或25美元的价格来做投资决策的,而且——

But you can do the same thing in copper. You can do the same thing in some of the things we manufacture — I mean it — but with commodities, it's particularly dramatic. And, you know, farmers have been getting lousy prices, but to some extent, the government subsidized them. I'm all for it, actually. But if you're an oil producer, you take your chances on future prices, unless you want to sell a lot of futures forward. OXY, actually, did sell 300,000 barrels a day of puts, in effect, that — or they bought puts — and sold calls, in effect, to match it. And they were protected on $10 — for a layer of $10 a barrel on 300,000 barrels a day.
但铜也是一样的道理。在我们制造的某些东西上也是一样——我是认真的——但在大宗商品领域,这种情况尤为剧烈。你知道,农民一直在忍受糟糕的价格,但在某种程度上,政府给了他们补贴。对此我其实是完全支持的。但如果你是一个石油生产商,你就是在赌未来的油价,除非你想大量卖出远期期货来锁定价格。OXY 实际上确实做了——相当于卖出了每天30万桶的看跌期权——或者说他们买入了看跌期权——并卖出了看涨期权来与之匹配。他们以此获得了10美元的保护——也就是在每天30万桶的产量上,有每桶10美元的一层价格保护。

But you're really buying — when you buy oil, you're betting on oil prices over time, and over a long time. And oil prices — there's risk. And the risk is being realized by oil producers as we speak. There will be— if these prices prevail — there will be a lot of bad loans in energy loans and or— bad debts in energy loans. And if there are bad debts in energy loans, you can imagine what happens to the equity holders. So yes, there's a risk.
但说到底——当你买入石油资产时,你就是在押注长期、乃至非常长期的油价走势。而油价——是有风险的。而且这个风险,正在我们谈话的此刻,被石油生产商们实实在在地承受着。如果这样的油价持续下去——能源贷款领域将会出现大量坏账——或者说,能源贷款中将产生大量坏账。而如果能源贷款出现坏账,你可以想象股权持有人会是什么下场。所以,是的,这其中存在风险。

Appendix.6.《2021-11-24 Ted Stop trying to get Blockbuster Video — i.e. Big Oil—to accelerate energy transition》

Over the last decade (2011-2020), returns on capital employed (ROCE) for the Big Oil-5 averaged 8.5% ($68 average nominal WTI oil price average over the period). More troubling, over 2015-2020, ROCE averaged a paltry 3.5% ($51/bbl WTI). There is an urgent need to improve profitability in the area it knows best. Prior to 2011, Big Oils actually generated quite competitive profitability, free cash flow, and shareholder returns. Over 1991-2010, ROCE for Big Oil-5 averaged 19% (pre-merger periods include only the surviving heritage company), which helped traditional energy remain a meaningful weighting in the S&P 500 until the post-2014 bust period began.
在过去十年(2011-2020 年),五大石油公司的资本回报率(ROCE)平均为 8.5%(同期 WTI 原油价格平均名义价格为 68 美元)。更令人担忧的是,在 2015-2020 年间,ROCE 平均仅为 3.5%(WTI 每桶 51 美元)。迫切需要在其最擅长的领域提高盈利能力。在 2011 年之前,五大石油公司实际上产生了相当有竞争力的盈利能力、自由现金流和股东回报。在 1991-2010 年间,五大石油公司的 ROCE 平均为 19%(合并前的时期仅包括存续的传统公司),这使得传统能源在 2014 年后经济衰退开始之前,仍在标准普尔 500 指数中占有重要权重。

Appendix.7.《2021-12-08 From Not-For-Profit to a New ROCE Super-Cycle》

As you can see in Exhibit 4, in Energy, reinvestment rates are inversely correlated with ROCE. Said another way, the more you spend, in general, the worse the profitability. This is the reason energy investors are instinctively skeptical when managements talk up the virtues of growth via higher capital spending budgets. I will expand on the growth versus returns trade off in a future note; it is usually the biggest mistake made by most E&P management teams.
如您在展览 4 中所见,在能源领域,再投资率与资本回报率(ROCE)呈反比关系。换句话说,您花费越多,通常盈利能力就越差。这就是为什么能源投资者在管理层谈论通过增加资本支出预算来实现增长的优点时,直觉上会持怀疑态度的原因。我将在未来的说明中详细阐述增长与回报之间的权衡;这通常是大多数勘探与生产(E&P)管理团队所犯的最大错误。

Generating higher ROCE is not necessarily as simple as reinvesting less, but it usually is the place to start. Where this goes wrong is in the trade-off with volume growth as a field/asset matures. Unlike other businesses, oilfields are not forever. Once an oilfield enters long-term decline, managements will typically need to spend in new areas in order to at least sustain production volumes. Whether this is positive, negative, or neutral for ROCE will be driven by how well they execute on finding and developing new fields. That discussion is for another day. The simple point of this note is to highlight that reinvestment rates plays a big role in determining “good” versus “evil” ROCE generation.
生成更高的资本回报率(ROCE)并不一定像减少再投资那么简单,但通常这是一个开始的地方。问题出在随着领域/资产的成熟,体量增长的权衡上。与其他业务不同,油田并不是永恒的。一旦油田进入长期衰退,管理层通常需要在新领域上进行投资,以至少维持生产量。对于 ROCE 来说,这是否是积极、消极或中性的影响,将取决于他们在寻找和开发新油田方面的执行能力。这个讨论留到另一天。本文的简单要点是强调再投资率在决定“好”与“坏”ROCE 生成中扮演着重要角色。
10. People gambling on stocks made big Occidental stock buys possible
股票赌徒成就了大规模买入 Occidental 的机会

WARREN BUFFETT: And what happened was that a few stocks got very interesting to us. And we also spent a lot of money. What happened — the market — and this is really important to understand — in the last couple years, the stock market has probably — it's always been a combination of a casino and a — and when I talk about Wall Street, I'm talking about the whole capital formation market — but the — and trading market, et cetera. But the market has been extraordinary. Sometimes it's quite investment oriented. It's not like it — it's always what you've read about in the books and everything — what capital markets are supposed to do, and you study it in school and all that. And other times, it's almost totally a casino, and it's a gambling parlor. And that existed to an extraordinary degree in the last couple of years — encouraged by Wall Street because the money is in turning over stocks. I mean, people say how wonderfully you've done if you bought Berkshire in, you know, 1965 or something and held it. But your broker would've starved to death.
WARREN BUFFETT:事情的经过是这样的——有几只股票变得对我们非常有吸引力,而我们也花了相当多的钱。这里有一个非常重要的背景需要理解——过去几年里,股票市场——它始终是赌场与——当我说"华尔街"时,我指的是整个资本形成市场——交易市场等等的混合体。但这个市场近年来的表现实属罕见。有时候,它是相当投资导向的,就像书本上写的那样——资本市场本应发挥的功能,也是学校里教你的那套东西。但在另一些时候,它几乎完全变成了赌场,变成了一个赌博场所。而这种现象在过去几年里达到了异乎寻常的程度——华尔街是在推波助澜的,因为钱就在于股票的快速周转。人们会说,如果你在1965年前后买入Berkshire并一直持有,那你的收益该有多么惊人。但你的经纪人早就饿死了。

Wall Street makes money on — one way or another — catching the crumbs that fall off a table of capitalism and an incredible economy that, you know, nobody could've ever dreamed of a couple hundred years ago. But they don't make money unless people do things (laughs) and if they get a piece of them. And they make a lot more money when people are gambling than when they're investing. It's much better to have somebody that's going to trade 20 times a day and get all excited about it, just like pulling the handle on a slot machine. You know, that's who you — you know — You may not say that you want that person. You'd like the other kind of person, too, maybe, but that's where you make the money. (Laughs) And the degree to which the market got dominated by that is shown on a slide some — I have it here somewhere. Yeah. Here's — on [slide] Oxy-one — if you'll put up the Oxy-one.
华尔街赚钱的方式——不管哪种方式——就是捡资本主义大餐桌上掉落的面包屑,以及从这个令人叹为观止的经济体中分一杯羹——这种经济体是两百年前的人做梦都想不到的。但他们必须要有人"动起来"才能赚钱(笑),要能从交易中分到一份。而当人们在赌博而非在投资的时候,他们赚的钱要多得多。最理想的客户是那种一天交易二十次、每次都亢奋不已的人——就像不停地拉老虎机的手柄。你知道,那就是你想要的那种人——当然,你嘴上不会这么说。你也许会说你更喜欢另一种人,但真正让你赚钱的是前者。(笑)市场被这种行为主导到了何种程度,可以从一张幻灯片上看出来——我这儿有,找一找。好,就是这张——"Oxy-one"幻灯片——请把Oxy-one放出来。

That shows how we bought what became — well, we bought in two weeks, or thereabouts, 14% of Occidental Petroleum. And you'll say, "Well, how can you buy 14% of a company in two weeks?" And it's more extreme than that, because if you look at the Occidental proxy, you'll see that — the standard names — BlackRock index funds, State Street index funds, basically, Vanguard index funds, and then one other firm, Dodge & Cox. If you take those four entities — and they're not going to buy and sell stock — they may get their own little — so they own 40% of the company, roughly, those four firms. And they didn't do anything during this period. So now you're down to 60% of the Occidental Petroleum Company that's even available for sale. Occidental's been around for years, and years, and years. Big company, all kinds of things.
这张幻灯片展示的是我们如何买入——总之,我们在大约两周时间里买入了Occidental Petroleum 14%的股份。你可能会问:"怎么可能在两周内买到一家公司14%的股份?"而现实比这更极端。如果你看Occidental的代理声明,你会看到那些熟悉的名字——BlackRock的指数基金、State Street的指数基金、基本上还有Vanguard的指数基金,再加上另一家公司Dodge & Cox。把这四家机构加在一起——它们不会随便买卖股票——它们大约持有这家公司40%的股份。而在这段时间里,它们什么都没做。所以,实际上可供买卖的Occidental股份只剩下了大约60%。Occidental是一家存在了很多很多年的大公司,涉及各种各样的业务。

And with 60% of the stock outstanding, I go in and tell Mark Millard, this fellow that is 30 feet away from me or so, and I say in the morning to him, you know, "Buy 20% and take blocks, or whatever it may be." And in two weeks, he buys 14% out of 60%. That's not investment. (Laughter) I mean, you're not buying from — I find it just incredible. You wouldn't be able to do that with Berkshire. I mean, you can't — literally buy it. You can say you want to buy 14% of the company. It's going to take you a long, long time. But, overwhelmingly, large companies in America — well, all of them — they became poker chips. And people were buying and selling like three-day calls or two-day calls. And the more people — times people pull the handle on the machine, the more money the machine makes. I mean, it's very clear. And overwhelmingly — I mean, where did the people go?
在60%的流通股基础上,我走过去告诉Mark Millard——就是离我大概三十英尺远的那个人——我早上对他说:"去买20%,大宗交易也行,随便什么方式。"结果两周之内,他在60%的流通盘里买进了14%。这根本不是投资。(笑声)我是说,你买的对象——我觉得这简直难以置信。你在Berkshire身上是绝对做不到这件事的。你没办法——字面意思上——买到。你可以说你想买这家公司14%的股份,但那将花上你非常非常长的时间。然而,美国的大公司——基本上所有公司——都变成了扑克筹码。人们像买三天期或两天期认购期权一样买进卖出。而人们越频繁地拉机器的手柄,机器赚的钱就越多。这是非常清楚的。而那些真正的投资者——他们都去哪儿了?

The investors just were sitting around and there weren't very many, and the money was being made, essentially, by a bunch of people gambling on things. And that enabled us, in a two-week period, to buy 14% of a business that's been around for decades. Imagine trying to buy 14% of the farms in two weeks in this country, 14% of the apartment houses, or 14% of the auto dealerships, or just anything, when already 40% were locked up some other place. It is — it defies anything that Charlie and I have seen, and we've seen a lot. But I've never seen that percentage of the American public — essentially, it was a gambling parlor. And the people that were making money were people that worked with gamblers. (Laughs) And then it declined very significantly a few weeks ago. You can feel it if you're around it. So, when somebody asks a very good question, this, "Why weren't you doing anything on February 20th, and why were you doing it on — starting, well, in the case of Occidental, on February 28th?"
投资者只是袖手旁观,而且数量很少,钱基本上是被一群在赌博的人赚走了。正是这种局面,使得我们能在两周时间里买入一家存在了几十年的企业14%的股份。想象一下,在这个国家,在40%已经被锁定在其他地方的情况下,试图在两周内买入全国农场的14%、公寓楼的14%、汽车经销商的14%,或者任何其他资产的14%。这简直违背了我和Charlie所见过的一切——而我们见过很多。但我从未见过这么高比例的美国公众——本质上,那就是一个赌场。而那些赚钱的人,是那些服务于赌徒的人。(笑)然后,就在几周前,这种风气急剧消退了。如果你身处其中,是能感觉到的。所以,当有人问了一个很好的问题:"为什么你们在2月20日什么都没做,而从2月28日——就Occidental而言——才开始行动?"

— you know, it's because things developed in a way — And in the case of Occidental specifically, they'd had an analyst presentation of some — I don't know whether it was a quarterly one or what it was exactly — but I read it over a weekend — and that was the weekend when the annual report came out — I read it over a weekend. And what [CEO] Vicki Hollub was saying made nothing but sense. And I decided that it was a good place to put Berkshire's money. And then I found out in the ensuing two weeks — it was there in black and white — there was nothing mysterious about it — but Vicki was saying what the company had gone through and where it was now and what they planned to do with the money. And she'll do what — she says she doesn't know the price of oil next year. Nobody does. But we decided it made sense. And two weeks later, we had 14% of the company. And we also already had a preferred stock and warrants.
——你知道,是因为事情的发展有其特定的节奏。就Occidental而言,他们做了一次分析师报告——我不确定是季度报告还是什么——但我利用一个周末读完了它——正好那个周末年报也出来了——我就在那个周末读完的。Vicki Hollub(CEO)说的每一句话都无比清晰合理。我决定这是一个值得投入Berkshire资金的好地方。接下来的两周里,我进一步印证了这个判断——白纸黑字,没有任何神秘之处——Vicki说的是公司经历了什么、现在处于什么位置、以及他们打算如何运用资金。至于她会做到什么程度——她说她不知道明年的油价。没有人知道。但我们判断这是合理的。两周后,我们持有了这家公司14%的股份。而我们此前已经持有了优先股和认股权证。

And the story of the preferred stock is we paid 10 billion — preferred stock and warrants — we paid 10 billion for it — and at the end of the March quarter of 2020, we valued that 10 billion — for our 10-Q — we valued it at 5 1/2 billion. So, we had a 4 1/2 billion loss. And it would have — you know — The world changed. Oil sold for minus $37 a barrel (laughs) one day, and — Now it's quite apparent, I think, that we want — we're very happy — we should be very happy — that we can produce 11 million barrels a day, or something of the sort, in the United States, rather than being able to produce none and having to find 11 million barrels a day somewhere else (laughs) in the world to take care of keeping the American industrial machine working. Charlie, have you got any comments on that as to how something this crazy could've happened?
至于优先股的故事:我们为优先股和认股权证支付了100亿美元——然后到2020年3月季末,在我们提交10-Q报告时,我们将这100亿美元的持仓估值为55亿美元。也就是说,我们亏损了45亿美元。世界变了。有一天,石油的售价是负37美元一桶(笑)——现在,我认为已经非常清楚了:我们应该感到庆幸——非常庆幸——美国每天能生产大约1100万桶石油,而不是一无所有、不得不从世界其他地方(笑)每天找来1100万桶,来维持美国工业机器的运转。Charlie,关于这种疯狂的事情是如何发生的,你有什么看法吗?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, it happened — it's almost a mania of speculation that we now have. We have computers with algorithms trading against other computers. We've got people that know nothing about stocks being advised by stockbrokers, who know even less. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER:嗯,这件事发生了——我们现在经历的几乎是一场投机狂热。我们有算法程序在互相对战。我们有对股票一无所知的人,在接受懂得更少的股票经纪人的建议。(笑声)

WARREN BUFFETT: They understand the commissions, though.
WARREN BUFFETT:不过,他们倒是很懂佣金。

CHARLIE MUNGER: It's just an incredible, crazy situation. And it's weird that we ever got a system, where all this equivalent of a casino activity is all mixed up with a lot of legitimate long-term investment. I don't think any wise country would've wanted this outcome. Why would you want your country's stocks to trade on a casino basis to people who are just like the people that play craps and roulette in the casino? I think it's crazy. But it happened. And it's respectable. Not with me, but with other people. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER:这就是一个令人难以置信的疯狂局面。而我们居然建立了这样一套体系——把所有这些等同于赌场的活动,与大量合法的长期投资混杂在一起——这实在是荒诞。我不认为任何一个明智的国家会想要这种结果。你为什么要让你们国家的股票,像赌场里玩骰子、转轮盘的人那样去交易?我认为这是疯狂的。但它就是发生了。而且还被视为体面之事。在我看来不是,但在其他人看来是。(笑声)

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah — well — and look at — look at what — the country — I mean, they formed the New York Stock Exchange in 1792 under a buttonwood tree. And it really didn't seem like that was the eureka moment in America. But just look at what's happened, using the system for less than — you know — well — you know — three of my lifetimes. I mean, (laughs) it's unbelievable. So — It's worked. Now, maybe it's worked in spite of itself — maybe the country — but one way or another, America has worked in an incredible manner. Nobody could've dreamt it. Nobody. You know, they'd have hauled you away if you said — you know — in three lifetimes — you know — that — you know — this place where we're meeting — I mean — it became a state in 1867. But in 1789, if you'd asked Ben Franklin or somebody that was walking out of the Constitutional Convention, "What do you think the prospects are for Nebraska?"
WARREN BUFFETT:是的——好吧——你看——看看这个国家——我的意思是,他们在1792年在一棵梧桐树下创立了New York Stock Exchange。当时看起来,那根本不像是美国历史上的"尤里卡时刻"。但你看看在不到——你知道——三个我的人生那么长的时间里,用这套体系所成就的一切。我是说(笑),这简直令人难以置信。所以——它奏效了。也许它是在磕磕绊绊中奏效的——也许这个国家——但不管怎样,美国以一种令人叹为观止的方式运转着。没有人能梦想到。没有任何人。你知道,如果你说——在三个人生那么长的时间里——我们开会的这个地方——它在1867年才成为一个州。但如果在1789年,你去问Ben Franklin或者某个刚走出制宪会议的人:"你觉得Nebraska的前景怎么样?"
(笑声)

(Laughs) It's just — it's unbelievable what's been accomplished. And it's been accomplished — the people who encouraged the gambling — they would like to say it's been accomplished because of the — we've got these liquid markets and all these wonderful things. Charlie would probably say it's in spite of that. Who knows? (Laughter) But — The answer is that — well, there isn't an answer. (Laughter) The — My wife — when we got married April 19th, 1952 — we got in my aunt's car and we started driving west. And we ended up — we drove all over the west — but one night we ended up in Las Vegas. And there were three fellows out there. Eddie — it was Eddie Barrick, and Sam Ziegman, and Jackie Gaughan. And all three of these guys were from Omaha. And they'd bought little pieces of the Flamingo. Bugsy Siegel had had his career ended rather abruptly — (laughs) — a few years earlier.
所取得的成就实在难以置信。而那些鼓励赌博的人——他们会说这些成就是因为——我们拥有这些流动的市场和所有这些美妙的东西。Charlie大概会说,这些成就是在这一切的阻挠下取得的。谁知道呢?(笑声)但——答案是——好吧,并没有答案。(笑声)我的妻子——我们在1952年4月19日结婚——我们坐上我姑妈的车,向西驾车出发。我们最终——我们在西部到处转——但有一天晚上,我们来到了Las Vegas。在那里有三个人。Eddie——是Eddie Barrick,和Sam Ziegman,还有Jackie Gaughan。这三个人都来自Omaha。他们各买了Flamingo的一小部分股份。Bugsy Siegel的事业在几年前被相当突然地终结了——(笑)。

CHARLIE MUNGER: By a bullet.
CHARLIE MUNGER:被子弹打死的。

WARREN BUFFETT: But it was a stray bullet, undoubtedly. (Laughter) In fact, there were probably five or six stray bullets. But in any event, Bugsy was gone. And some people, including three guys from Omaha, were in the group. Sam Ziegman lived about two blocks from where I live now. He was Stan Lipsey's uncle. Stan Lipsey ran — for those of you who follow Berkshire — ran The Buffalo News and was our partner for 40 or 50 years later on. So, all kinds of things intersect. But I walked into this casino, aged —the Flamingo — it was kind of a motel-like arrangement — and I was 21. And my bride was 19. And I looked around the room and there were all of these people — and they were better dressed then — it was a more dignified group than, perhaps, currently — but they had flown thousands of miles in some cases — you know — in planes that weren't as fast as the current ones and were more expensive, probably, on a per-mile basis, adjusted, then.
WARREN BUFFETT:但那无疑是一颗流弹。(笑声)事实上,大概有五六颗流弹。但不管怎样,Bugsy就这么走了。有一些人,包括三个来自Omaha的家伙,在那个圈子里。Sam Ziegman住的地方离我现在住的地方大概只有两个街区。他是Stan Lipsey的舅舅。Stan Lipsey——对于关注Berkshire的人来说——经营着The Buffalo News,后来成为我们长达四五十年的合伙人。所以,各种各样的事情都交织在一起。但我走进了这家赌场——Flamingo——那是一种有点像汽车旅馆的格局——那年我21岁,我的新娘19岁。我环顾四周,看到了所有这些人——那时候他们穿着更体面——也许是比现在更有格调的一群人——但他们中有些人飞行了数千英里——你知道——乘坐的飞机没有现在快,而且按每英里折算,可能还更贵。

They'd gone to great lengths to come out to do something that was mathematically unintelligent, and they knew it was unintelligent. And, I mean, they couldn't do it fast enough, in terms of rolling the dice, you know, and trying to determine whether they were hot or whatever they may be. And I looked around at that group. And everybody there knew that they were doing something that was mathematically dumb, and they'd come thousands of miles to do it, and they were — And I said to my wife, I said, you know, I'm going to get rich. (Laughs) I mean, how can you miss? (Laughs) If people are willing to do this, you know, this is a land of opportunity. Well, it's the way it still is, you know. And the Flamingo grew to be much bigger. And in Omaha, we're very proud of Jackie and the things he did. He only died a year or two ago. He became sort of the leader — spiritual leader — of Vegas.
他们大费周章地赶来,只是为了做一件在数学上明显不明智的事——而且他们自己也知道这是不明智的。我的意思是,他们恨不得把骰子掷得更快,试图判断自己是否"手气正热"或者诸如此类的东西。我环顾那群人,每个人都知道自己在做一件数学上很蠢的事,而且他们不远千里专程赶来就为了这件事。我转头对我妻子说:"你知道吗,我会变富的。"(笑)我是说,怎么可能失手呢?(笑)如果人们愿意这样做,那这就是一片充满机会的土地。现在依然如此,你知道的。Flamingo后来变得大得多。在Omaha,我们都为Jackie和他所做的事情感到非常自豪。他也就是一两年前才去世。他成为了某种意义上的——Vegas的精神领袖。

And, like I say, Sam Ziegman's nephew went on to save my and Charlie's investment that we made in Blue Chip and The Buffalo News. (Laughs) And it's a very accidental society that occurs. But there's nothing stranger than what has happened in finance. On the other hand, if you go back, perhaps the greatest chapter ever written on the operation of markets, particularly the stock market, is in a book, probably one of the most famous books in economic history, The General Theory, written by John Maynard Keynes. I think it was 1936. And I don't know whether it's chapter — I think it was chapter 12 — but whatever it is, he describes what markets are all about in 1936. And he describes something, in beautiful prose, that explains why the whole country in March of this year was sitting around trading Occidental in some crazy way that enabled us to buy a quarter of what wasn't owned by four other institutions that weren't going to sell. But we could buy a quarter of it. And we could've bought a lot more. I mean — you just wondered if there was anybody that really was thinking about investment.
就像我说的,Sam Ziegman的侄子后来拯救了我和Charlie在Blue Chip和The Buffalo News上的投资。(笑)这是一个充满偶然性的社会。但没有什么比金融领域发生的事情更奇异的了。另一方面,如果你回头去看,也许有史以来关于市场运作——尤其是股票市场运作——写得最好的章节,出自一本书,可能是经济学史上最著名的著作之一:John Maynard Keynes写的《The General Theory》。我想是1936年出版的。我不记得是第几章——我觉得是第12章——但不管是哪章,他在1936年就描述了市场的本质。他用优美的文字描述了某种东西,这种东西解释了为什么今年3月,整个国家都在以一种疯狂的方式交易Occidental——这种疯狂使我们得以买入那25%:即在扣除那四家不会出售股票的机构所持有的40%之后,剩余流通盘中的四分之一。我们本可以买入更多。我的意思是——你不禁要想,到底有没有人是真正在思考投资这件事的。

If you — Going back to investing, I mean, investing is laying out money now with the hope of getting back more later on. It's really laying out purchasing power now with the hope of getting more purchasing power back. But that's the reason you'd — and, you know, that's the way you learn in the textbooks, that you defer consumption now so you can consume more later on, so that you can take care of your family — all these things about how investment takes place. And that is what happens with farms. I mean, if somebody buys a farm and they, generally, they ultimately leave it to their kids or they got it from their parents. And, I mean, they don't sit there every day and, you know, get quotes 15 times a day and say, you know, I'd like to get a call — I'd like to sell a put, you know, on the guy's farm next to me. And you can have a call on mine. And then I'll have something called a straddle or a strangle, or whatever it may be.
如果你——回到投资这件事本身,投资的意思是:现在拿出钱,希望之后能收回更多。本质上是:现在拿出购买力,希望未来能收回更多购买力。这就是为什么——这也是教科书里告诉你的方式——你现在推迟消费,是为了以后能消费更多,是为了照顾好你的家人——所有这些关于投资如何发生的道理。而这正是农场的运作方式。如果有人买了一块农场,他们一般最终会把它留给子女,或者是从父母那里继承来的。他们不会每天坐在那里,一天查15次报价,然后说:"我想买个看涨期权——我想在隔壁那家伙的农场上卖个看跌期权,你可以在我这儿买个看涨期权,然后我再来一个跨式组合或者宽跨式,或者诸如此类的东西。"

And, you know, they just — They go about making the farm worth more money. And they do the same thing if they've got an auto dealership. And they do the same thing, you know, if they've got an apartment house. They look to improve it and attract tenants, all those kind of things. And — Forty — what would it be? — 40 trillion at least, you know, of the ownership of all of the American business — people treat it as poker chips or pulling the handle. And they've got systems set up so that if you want to buy a three-day call on a stock, you can do it. And they make more money selling you calls than if you buy stocks. So, they teach you on calls. (Laughs) Nobody's going around selling calls on farms or anything of the sort. But that's why markets do crazy things. And occasionally, Berkshire gets a chance to do something. And it's — It's not because we're smart.
他们只是想方设法让农场变得更值钱。经营汽车经销商的人也是同样的道理。经营公寓楼的人也是同样的道理。他们想着怎么改善它、怎么吸引租户,诸如此类。而美国所有企业的所有权——至少有40万亿美元吧——人们把它当成扑克筹码,像拉老虎机一样对待。他们建立了这样的系统:如果你想买一只股票的三天期看涨期权,你随时可以做到。而他们卖给你期权比你买股票让他们赚的钱更多。所以他们教你做期权。(笑)没有人四处兜售农场的看涨期权或诸如此类的东西。但这就是为什么市场会做出疯狂的事情。而偶尔,Berkshire会得到一个出手的机会。这——这不是因为我们聪明。

It's because we're — the only thing I can say we're qualified on — and sometimes I wonder about that — but I think we're sane. You know, I mean, and that's the main requirement in this business. And — Charlie?
这是因为我们——我唯一能说我们有资格做到的事情——有时候我对此也有疑问——但我认为我们是理智的。你知道,在这个行业里,这是最主要的要求。——Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I don't think we have ever had anything quite like what we have now, in terms of the volumes and pure gambling activity that go on daily, and the people lathering the gamblers up so they can rook them. And it's not pretty. And I don't find it rich in glory for capitalism or anything, anymore than a bunch of people throwing dice at a table. What good does that do the rest of the world?
CHARLIE MUNGER:我认为我们从未经历过像现在这样的情况——就每日发生的交易量和纯粹的赌博活动而言,以及那些煽动赌徒情绪、好从中捞一把的人。这不是什么好看的景象。我也不觉得这对资本主义有什么荣耀可言,就像一群人围着桌子掷骰子一样。这对世界其他地方有什么好处?

WARREN BUFFETT: It's a great way to become rich, though, just figure out ways to insert yourself into the system somehow. And, you know, jobs to some extent self-select. And many years ago — and I've got all kinds of friends on Wall Street — not as many as I had before I had started talking this way an hour or so ago. But I really do. I know — People make — they make lots of decisions in life. And the truth is that, overall, the American system has worked extremely well. It's may be very unfair, in many ways. But it has produced incredible difference in the goods and services available to me versus what my grandfather had available, you know. I do not want to go back to pre-air conditioning and people pouring whiskey down me while they drill my teeth or something of the sort, or any of that. I mean, this is a lot better world. And —
WARREN BUFFETT:不过,这倒是一个发财致富的好方法——只要想办法把自己插入这个系统就行了。而且,工作在某种程度上是自我选择的。很多年前——我在华尔街有各种各样的朋友——虽然在我大约一小时前开始这样说话之后,朋友数量可能没那么多了。但我真的有。我知道——人们做——他们一生中要做很多决定。而事实是,总体而言,美国的体系运转得极为出色。在很多方面,它可能非常不公平。但它使我能够获得的商品和服务,与我祖父那个时代能获得的相比,产生了令人难以置信的差距。我可不想回到没有空调的年代,回到牙医给你钻牙时往你嘴里灌威士忌的年代,或者诸如此类的事情。我是说,这是一个好得多的世界。而——

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I think we've made more because of the crazy gambling. I think it's made it easier for us, net, over the decades we've been operating.
CHARLIE MUNGER:嗯,我认为我们正是因为这种疯狂的赌博行为才赚得更多。我认为从净效果来看,在我们运营的这几十年里,这让我们的工作变得更容易了。

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I mean, and we've depended on it.
WARREN BUFFETT:我的意思是,我们确实依赖于此。

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER:是的。(笑声)

WARREN BUFFETT: I mean, we depend on mispriced businesses through a mechanism where we're not responsible for the mispricing of them. And overall, we learned something a long time ago, that it doesn't take a high IQ. It doesn't take anything. It just takes the right attitude. We may talk more about that later, but I think we ought to prove that we've got an audience here by going to section one. (Laughs)
WARREN BUFFETT:我的意思是,我们依赖于定价错误的企业,而这种定价错误的机制并不是我们造成的。总体而言,我们很早就明白了一件事:这不需要高智商,不需要任何特别的东西,只需要正确的心态。我们之后可能会更多地谈到这一点,但我想我们现在应该证明这里确实有观众——让我们进入第一区的提问环节。(笑)

Appendix.9.《2022-08-08 An oil company is seeking property tax breaks to finance its plans to remove carbon dioxide from Texas skies》

Federal tax credits provide another revenue stream. Under current law, Occidental would eventually be eligible to deduct $35 from its taxes for every metric ton of carbon dioxide it captures and uses to produce oil, or $50 for every metric ton that it stores permanently. But if the deal recently struck by Senate Democrats is enacted into law, those figures would leap to $130 or $180 per metric ton. Under these higher credit values, Occidental could be eligible to receive $65 million a year for 12 years for the first project, even if it used the carbon dioxide to pump more oil. Subsequent direct air capture operations could be far larger, potentially generating more than $1 billion annually.
联邦税收抵免提供了另一种收入来源。根据现行法律,西方石油公司最终有资格每捕获和利用一公吨二氧化碳生产石油就从税收中扣除 35 美元,或者每永久储存一公吨则扣除 50 美元。但是,如果参议院民主党最近达成的协议成为法律,这些数字将跃升至每公吨 130 美元或 180 美元。在这些更高的抵免值下,西方石油公司有资格在第一个项目中每年获得 6500 万美元,持续 12 年,即使它使用二氧化碳来抽取更多石油。后续的直接空气捕集操作可能会大得多,潜在年收入超过 10 亿美元。
43. 'We will not be making any offer for control of Occidental'
我们不会寻求控制 Occidental

WARREN BUFFETT: Ok, Becky.
WARREN BUFFETT:好,Becky。

BECKY QUICK: This is a question from Monroe Richardson (PH). The Wall Street Journal reported in March that oil producers are producing less oil and may have reached their peak in the Permian Basin. Given the major positions of both Occidental Petroleum and Chevron in the Permian, which you please explain the rationale for Berkshire's significant holdings of both those companies, considering that future outlook for oil there?
BECKY QUICK:这是 Monroe Richardson(音)提的问题。《华尔街日报》三月报道称,石油生产商的产量正在下降,二叠纪盆地(Permian Basin)的产量可能已经见顶。考虑到 Occidental Petroleum 和 Chevron 在二叠纪盆地都有重大布局,你能解释一下 Berkshire 大量持有这两家公司的逻辑吗?结合那里石油的未来前景来谈?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, there's no question — it's really interesting about oil, and Charlie knows way more about oil than I do, when did you buy that royalty in Bakersfield, or wherever it is? But that was before I met you, right?
WARREN BUFFETT:嗯,这毫无疑问——石油这事儿真的很有意思,Charlie 懂的油比我多多了。你是什么时候在 Bakersfield 买的那个经济权益来着,还是在哪儿?不过那是在我认识你之前吧?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes — no, it wasn't before — it was — yes, it was. It was just before. You're right. And that goddamn royalty is still paying me $70,000 a year.
CHARLIE MUNGER:对——不,不是之前——是——对,是的。就在之前不久。你说得对。那该死的经济权益现在每年还在给我付 7 万美元呢。

WARREN BUFFETT: What'd you pay for the royalty?
WARREN BUFFETT:你当初买那经济权益花了多少钱?

CHARLIE MUNGER: A thousand dollars.
CHARLIE MUNGER:一千美元。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Yeah. Now that's the opposite of the Permian. My dad bought $1,000 or $1,500 worth of royalties before he died in 1964. He left them to my mother. My mother left them to her two daughters. And my older sister died. And my younger sister is here today. And she gets these checks every month. And she knows about all these different fields, and what they're producing. And that's the reality of half of the oil production, or something around that, in the United States. And then the other half is shale.
WARREN BUFFETT:对,对。这和二叠纪盆地的情况完全相反。我父亲在 1964 年去世前买了大概一千到一千五百美元的经济权益。他把它们留给了我母亲。我母亲又把它们留给了她的两个女儿。我大姐已经去世了。我小妹今天就在这儿。她每个月都能收到这些支票。她对每一块不同的油田都了如指掌,知道各自的产量。这就是美国大约一半石油产量背后的现实。另一半,是页岩油。

And, you know, if you've gone to the movies, and ever watched oil, you've never watched the things that are pumping Charlie's royalties in California. You'll see these gushers of oil. Well, in the Permian, this should sink in on you, in the first day, the first day when you bring in a well, you know, it may be 12,000 barrels, or maybe 15,000 barrels. And it's dangerous. Occidental had one come in at I think at 19,000 barrels or something like that in one day. And in a year, year and a half, it becomes partly nothing. It's a different business in effect. In the United States, it's interesting. We use maybe 11 and a fraction — well, we produce 11 and a fraction million barrels of oil equivalent a day.
你知道吗,你要是去电影院看过石油题材的片子,那些喷涌而出的壮观镜头——那可不是 Charlie 在加州那些权益油田的样子。电影里你看到的是石油喷涌而出。二叠纪盆地的情况你得好好消化一下:一口新井刚打出来的第一天,头一天,产量可能是一万两千桶,或者一万五千桶。而且还很危险。Occidental 有一口井,我记得好像第一天打出了大概一万九千桶。但一年、一年半之后,产量就基本跌成零了。实际上这是一种完全不同的生意。在美国,有意思的是——我们大概生产,嗯,每天一千一百多万桶油当量。

But if shale stopped, I mean, it would drop to six million very fast. Well, just imagine taking five million barrels a day out of production in the world. And then we're also taking down our strategic petroleum reserve. Strategic petroleum reserve is the ultimate oilfield. You don't have to drill. It's just we've got them. And it was supposed to be strategic, but it gets involved in politics. And so, there's all — when you talk about the oil business, you're talking about different kinds of businesses, basically. And we like Occidental's position in the Permian. And we wouldn't like that position — well, it got to minus one day. It got to minus $30 a barrel.
但如果页岩油停了,我是说,产量会很快跌到六百万桶。你想想,从全球供应里一下子抽走五百万桶每天,那是什么概念。而且我们同时还在动用战略石油储备。战略石油储备才是终极油田啊。不用打井,就是存在那儿,我们有。它本来应该是战略性的,但结果卷进了政治。所以,这一切——当你谈论石油生意的时候,你基本上是在谈几种完全不同的生意。我们很喜欢 Occidental 在二叠纪盆地的布局。我们倒不是一直喜欢那个仓位——嗯,有一天油价跌成负数了。跌到了负 30 美元一桶。

That was crazy, of course. But if oil sells at X, you know, you do very well. And if it sells at half of X, you know, your costs are the same, and it doesn't change the production. And it doesn't work as well, but it also brings down the oil production of the United States very fast. So, we don't know what oil prices will be. But we do very much like the Occidental position they have. And that's why we financed them a few years ago, when it looked like it was a terrible mistake. Then the oil market just totally collapsed. And then it changed around. And we bought a lot of the common stock. In the last few months, they've reduced our preferred, which we don't like, obviously. But we'd be disappointed in them if they didn't reduce it. It's intelligent from their standpoint. So, we've taken — of the $10 billion preferred, we've gotten maybe $400,000,000 or $500,000,000 of it, retired at 110% of par.
那当然是疯了。但如果油价卖到 X,你知道,日子很好过。如果卖到 X 的一半,你知道,成本还是一样,产量也不会变。这样当然不好过,但同时也会让美国的石油产量很快垮下来。所以,我们不知道油价会走到哪里。但我们非常喜欢 Occidental 的资产布局。这就是为什么几年前我们给他们提供了融资,当时看起来简直是个糟糕透顶的决定。然后油市就彻底崩了。然后又反转了。然后我们买了大量普通股。过去几个月,他们赎回了我们手里的一部分优先股,我们当然不乐意。但如果他们不赎回,我们才会对他们失望。从他们的角度来说,这是明智的。所以,我们的一百亿优先股里,大概有四亿到五亿,被以面值的 110% 赎回了。

But, Vicki Hollub, she's an extraordinary manager of Occidental. Her first job was with Cities Service. That was the first stock I bought in 1942. She knows what happens beneath the surface. I know the math of it. But I wouldn't have the faintest idea what to do if I was in an oil field. I mean, I can dig two feet down in my backyard. And that's my understanding of subsoil in the world. I can't picture the field that Charlie has been collecting that monthly check from, from 50-plus years, 60 years roughly, or my sister, getting at various fields, where they just keep pumping, and pumping, and pumping.
但是,Vicki Hollub,她是 Occidental 非凡的管理者。她的第一份工作是在 Cities Service。那是我 1942 年买的第一只股票。她知道地表以下发生了什么。我懂其中的数学。但如果让我站在一块油田里,我根本不知道该怎么办。我是说,我能在自家后院挖两英尺深的坑。这就是我对这个世界地下土壤的全部认识。我根本想象不出 Charlie 收了五十多年、大概六十年月度支票的那块油田是什么样子,也想象不出我妹妹在各个油田拿到的那些支票——那些油田就是不停地抽,抽,抽。

And we, in the United States, we're lucky to have the absolutely to produce the kind of oil we've got from shale. But it is not a long-term source, like you might think, by watching movies about oil, or something of the sort. Charlie, do you have anything to add?
在美国,我们非常幸运,能够产出页岩油这种东西。但它绝不是一个长期来源,不像你看电影或者什么的,可能以为的那样。Charlie,你有什么补充的吗?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. It really dies fast, those shale wells. If you like quick death in your oil wells, we have them for you.
CHARLIE MUNGER:对。那些页岩井,衰减得真的很快。如果你喜欢油井快速死亡的感觉,我们这儿有的是。

WARREN BUFFETT: But Occidental, they're doing a lot of good things.
WARREN BUFFETT:但 Occidental,他们做了很多好事。

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. They drill a lot of new wells. And they're doing it at a profit, but it's a different kind of oil than this.
CHARLIE MUNGER:对。他们打了很多新井。而且还是盈利的,但这跟那种油不一样。

WARREN BUFFETT: It's just different. Yeah. Yeah. And that's true of almost half the oil produced in the United States. And there's times —
WARREN BUFFETT:就是不一样。对,对。而且这占了美国将近一半的石油产量。有些时候——

CHARLIE MUNGER: There's a lot of oil down there that nobody knows how to produce. And they've been working at it for, like, 50 years. But they worked at the existing shale production for about 50 years before they figured it out. And it was weirdly complicated when they finally were able to do it. There's only one type of sand that works.
CHARLIE MUNGER:地下还有大量的油没人知道怎么开采。他们已经研究了大概五十年了。但现有的页岩开采技术,他们也研究了大概五十年才搞明白。而且当他们最终搞定的时候,那玩意儿复杂得出奇。只有一种砂层是管用的。

WARREN BUFFETT: Can you imagine a horizontal pipe, you know, maybe a mile and a half or something? It's just so different than what you think about.
WARREN BUFFETT:你能想象一根水平的管子,大概一英里半还是多少?这跟你脑子里想的完全不是一回事。

CHARLIE MUNGER: It goes laterally for three miles, two miles down. How in the hell do you drill two or three miles laterally, when you're already two or three miles under the Earth? They have mastered a lot of very tricky technology to be able to get any oil out of these wells at all.
CHARLIE MUNGER:横向延伸三英里,垂直深度两英里。你他妈的怎么在地下两三英里的地方,再横着钻两三英里?他们掌握了大量极其复杂的技术,才能从这些井里弄出油来。

WARREN BUFFETT: And we love the position with Occidental. And we love having Vicki run it. And they've been —
WARREN BUFFETT:我们非常喜欢 Occidental 的这个仓位。我们也非常喜欢让 Vicki 来掌舵。而且他们一直——

CHARLIE MUNGER: And there's a lot more oil down there, if anybody can figure out another magic trick. That's all we need is another magic trick.
CHARLIE MUNGER:地下还有大量的油,如果有人能再想出另一个魔法的话。我们需要的就是再来一个魔法。

WARREN BUFFETT: But Occidental has some other things too.
WARREN BUFFETT:但 Occidental 还有一些别的东西。

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes. Yes. But —
CHARLIE MUNGER:对,对。但是——

WARREN BUFFETT: But the price of oil still is incredibly important in terms of the economics of short-lived oil. I mean, no question about that.
WARREN BUFFETT:但油价对于短命油的经济账来说,还是极其重要的。我是说,这毫无疑问。
Idea
页岩油的产量不稳定,油价下跌就可能没办法开采了,如果世界局势动荡,除美国以外的产量变得不可靠,而美国的产量中页岩油占到50%,油价下跌会有一定的阻力。
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, if it's —
CHARLIE MUNGER:嗯,如果——

WARREN BUFFETT: And we will incidentally — you know — There's speculation about us buying control. We're not going to buy control. (Laughs) We don't want to run — We've got the right management running it. We can't — we wouldn't know what to do with it. And (UNINTELLIGLE) wouldn't know what to do with an oil field.
WARREN BUFFETT:顺便说一句——你知道——有人在猜测我们要收购控制权。我们不会收购控制权的。(笑)我们不想去经营——我们已经有合适的管理层在跑了。我们没办法——我们根本不知道拿它怎么办。而且(听不清)根本不知道拿一块油田怎么办。

CHARLIE MUNGER: Admitting you're buying coal would be like going out and seeking to acquire cancer or something. You can't even borrow to expand a coal mine now. It got very unfashionable.
CHARLIE MUNGER:承认你在买煤,就像是主动出去寻求得癌症一样。现在你甚至借不到钱去扩张煤矿。它变得非常不时髦了。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And we think, frankly, some of the things said are ridiculous. And on both sides. In both extremes. I mean, you're dealing with physics. You're dealing with — the politicization of positions on something that's enormously important in terms of energy just lends itself to demagogues, and fundraisers, and advisory organizations, and everybody in sight. And we will make rational decisions. And we do not think it's un-American to be producing oil.
WARREN BUFFETT:对。说实话,我们觉得有些说法简直荒谬。两边都有。两个极端都有。我是说,你面对的是物理学。你面对的是——把能源这种极其重要的事情政治化,只会给煽动家、募款人、咨询机构、以及所有能想到的人提供可乘之机。我们会做出理性的决策。我们不认为生产石油是不爱国的。

CHARLIE MUNGER: And there is no oil basin in the United States that compares to the Permian, in terms of promise.
CHARLIE MUNGER:而且在美国,就潜力而言,没有任何一个油盆能跟二叠纪盆地相比。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We were lucky.
WARREN BUFFETT:对。我们很幸运。

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I don't —
CHARLIE MUNGER:嗯,我不——

WARREN BUFFETT: We didn't know it was there until –
WARREN BUFFETT:我们直到——才知道它在那里——

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes.
CHARLIE MUNGER:是的。

WARREN BUFFETT: — not that many years ago.
WARREN BUFFETT:——也就是没多少年前的事。

CHARLIE MUNGER: It had sort of been used up. And then they always knew the shale oil was there. But they thought it was going to stay unrecoverable forever.
CHARLIE MUNGER:它差不多已经被开采得差不多了。然后页岩油嘛,大家一直都知道它在那里。但他们以为它会永远开采不了。

WARREN BUFFETT: The second or third stock I bought was Texas Pacific Land Trust. And they owned 3,000,000 acres down there. And they were raising revenues of $10,000 a year or something like that. And they were sitting on this incredible amount of oil. And basically, that company is now actually part of Chevron. And it went through Texaco and did all kinds of things. And there's still a Texas Pacific Land Trust. But a lot of that property is fee owned by — the minerals are owned by Chevron, which is some advantage. But it's an interesting subject, I'll put it that way.
WARREN BUFFETT:我买的第二或者第三只股票是 Texas Pacific Land Trust。他们在那里拥有三百万英亩的土地。当时年收入大概一万美元左右。就坐在这惊人储量的油上面。基本上,那家公司现在实际上已经是 Chevron 的一部分了。中间经过了 Texaco,经历了各种各样的事。现在还有一个 Texas Pacific Land Trust。但那些地产有很大一部分是完全产权——矿产权归 Chevron 所有,这是某种优势。不管怎样,这是个有意思的话题,就这么说吧。

And we will not be making any offer for control of Occidental. But we love the shares we have. And we may or may not own more in the future. But we certainly have warrants, which we got as part of the original deal, on a very sustainable amount of stock, at around $59 a share. And those warrants last a long time. I'm glad we have them.
我们不会提出收购 Occidental 控制权的要约。但我们很喜欢我们持有的股份。未来我们可能会买更多,也可能不会。但我们肯定持有认股权证,那是当初原始交易的一部分,数量相当可观,行权价大约是每股 59 美元。那些权证的期限很长。我很庆幸我们有它们。
And I see this project that you're working on is going to be the biggest in the world for pulling carbon straight out of the air and I guess capturing that. Is that the most promising way forward? See, if we could have just a big vacuum cleaner that would pull the carbon out of the air, that seems like it would be a pretty handy thing.
我看到你正在研究的这个项目将是世界上最大的从空气中直接提取碳的项目,我猜是捕捉碳。这是最有前途的方法吗?你看,如果我们能有一个大吸尘器,把空气中的碳吸出来,那似乎是一件非常方便的事情。

How promising does that look to you?
你觉得前景如何?

“It looks very promising to us. Other people don't recognize immediately about that until you delve into the details. And when you look at it in detail, reality is the way we're going to do it is we're going to use radial fans that already exist today. They're used in other types of industrial situations. So we'll pull air through a contact tower. And the contact fluid that's going to take the CO2 out of the air is potassium hydroxide. And our chemicals business is the largest marketer of that in the United States, second largest in the world. So we have a lot of skill and ability and knowledge around how to use potassium hydroxide. So that's a key component.
"在我们看来,这很有希望。在深入研究细节之前,其他人不会立即意识到这一点。而当你深入研究它的细节时,现实情况是,我们要做的就是使用目前已经存在的径向风扇。它们还用于其他类型的工业场合。所以我们要把空气从接触塔中抽出来。接触液是氢氧化钾,它能从空气中去除二氧化碳。我们的化学品业务是美国最大、世界第二大的氢氧化钾销售商。因此,我们在如何使用氢氧化钾方面拥有大量的技术、能力和知识。因此,这是一个关键的组成部分。

So the second thing is that in the contact tower, to make it mix better and create better efficiency, you need to put diffusers in there so that the mixing happens. And the diffusers in the contact tower will be PPC based, which is another product that we make. And we're building the first one in the Permian Basin, where we already have the infrastructure to support it.”
第二点是,在接触塔中,为了使其更好地混合并提高效率,需要在其中安装扩散器,以便进行混合。接触塔中的扩散器将以 PPC 为基础,这是我们生产的另一种产品。我们正在二叠纪盆地建造第一座,那里已经有了支持它的基础设施。

“So there are a lot of reasons why this strategy fits for us, because what we didn't want to do is we didn't want to try to be something that we're not. We wanted to try to build on our core confidence of using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery for more than 50 years. And so handling that CO2, knowing how to handle it and knowing how to put it underground and make sure that it's sequestered underground, whether it's a saline reservoir or whether it's an oil and gas reservoirs.
所以这个战略非常适合我们,因为我们不想去尝试做我们不擅长的事情。我们希望在我们核心能力的基础上进行扩展,我们已经利用二氧化碳进行增强型采油超过50年了。因此,处理二氧化碳、知道如何处理它并确保将它注入地下,无论是盐水层还是油气储层,我们都有这方面的经验。

We have the knowledge, skill and ability to do that because we've been doing it for a long time. And this strategy is very attractive to recruits. And we have people not only externally wanting to come to work for us because they see that we have a real pathway and we're executing on it to get to not only carbon neutrality for ourselves, but to help others get there. And too many other companies are not quite as progressed in terms of laying out not only what they're going to do, but how they're going to do it and continuing to grow oil production over time, but in a much lower carbon intensity way and ultimately carbon neutral.
我们拥有这样做的知识、技能和能力,因为我们已经这样做了很长时间。这一战略对招聘人员非常有吸引力。我们不仅有外部人员愿意来为我们工作,因为他们看到我们有真正的途径,而且我们正在执行,不仅为我们自己实现碳中和,而且帮助其他人实现碳中和。还有很多其他公司在制定计划方面进展不大,他们不仅不知道自己要做什么,也不知道如何去做,而且随着时间的推移,石油产量还会继续增长,但碳强度要低得多,最终实现碳中和。

。。。
So you're not leaving as much oil left in the ground, which means you could get away with not developing some of the oil that's in real pristine areas. You could stay away from that if we just get more out of the reservoirs we have today. In the United States, that's critically important because right now, production from conventional reservoirs is less than five million barrels a day.
这样,就不会有那么多石油留在地下,这意味着你可以不开发一些真正原始区域的石油。如果我们能从现在的油藏中开采出更多的石油,就可以避免这种情况。在美国,这一点至关重要,因为现在常规储层的日产量还不到500万桶。

So seven and a half million barrels a day is from shell. And three of the four shell basins in the United States are starting to plateau and potentially starting to decline. Ultimately, the Permian will too.”
因此,每天有 750 万桶石油来自页岩油的,美国的四个页岩盆地中有三个已经开始达到产量平台期,并可能开始下降。最终,二叠纪盆地也将会如此。

“It's a few years out, but ultimately it will too. So if you look at the United States in say 2045, 2050, our production, if we continue the way we have been, will not be enough to meet the demand in the United States and we will no longer at that point be energy independent. However, if our strategy is applied across the United States, then the next wave of incremental oil production will come from CO2 enhanced oil recovery, not only in conventional reservoirs, but also in shell reservoirs.
这还需要几年时间,但最终也会如此。因此,如果你展望美国在2045年或2050年的情况,按目前的生产方式,我们的产量将不足以满足国内需求,届时我们将不再能源独立。然而,如果我们的战略能够在美国全面实施,那么下一波石油增产将来自于CO2增强型采油,不仅在传统油藏中,也包括在页岩油藏中。
Idea
纯度在90%以上的二氧化碳即可用于提高采收率。二氧化碳在地层溶于水后,可使水的黏度增加20%~30%;溶于油后,原油体积膨胀,可使油的黏度降低30%~80%。二氧化碳驱油技术一般可提高原油采收率7%~15%、延长油井生产寿命15~20年,参考:《二氧化碳驱油:有前景的绿色增产途径》
So our strategy checks just about every box in that you want to get the most out of reservoirs because in addition to what I just described with respect to how the CO2 behaves and creates incremental oil that will emit less CO2, you also get to take advantage of these existing infrastructure so you don't have to build new infrastructure. And building new infrastructure would create more carbon footprints. So you can avoid doing that.”
因此,我们的战略几乎满足了你想从油藏中获得最大收益的所有要求,因为除了我刚才所描述的关于二氧化碳的表现以及创造出二氧化碳排放量更少的增量石油之外,你还可以利用这些现有的基础设施,从而不必建设新的基础设施。而建设新的基础设施会产生更多的碳足迹。因此,你可以避免这样做。

“And so I believe in those who study our strategy, really believe that this is what the industry needs to do and ultimately I think will do. And I think you'll start hearing changing rhetoric, I shouldn't say rhetoric, messages from other CEOs in our industry who are going to at some point realize this is what we need to do and this is the only way to restore credibility ultimately to our industry. And then we don't have to go down a climate transition path that's so incredibly expensive.
"因此,我相信那些研究我们战略的人,他们真的相信这是这个行业需要做的,而且我认为最终也会这么做。我想你会开始听到一些改变的言论,我不应该说是言论,而是来自我们行业其他首席执行官的信息,他们会在某个时候意识到这就是我们需要做的,这也是最终恢复我们行业信誉的唯一途径。这样,我们就不必再走昂贵得令人难以置信的气候转型之路了。

It will enable us to be able to afford a climate transition, also helping us to lower carbon in all the areas we operate in the world.
这将使我们有能力进行气候转型,也有助于我们在全球所有运营地区降低碳排放。

Is there anything I neglected to ask you about your company, about your long-term ambition that you want to add, or you think we've got it covered in terms of a broad overview?”
关于贵公司,关于贵公司的长远目标,您还有什么需要补充的吗?

“When we talk about our company, we're so excited about where we're headed and about our employees. But I think one thing gets lost, and that is our technical excellence. And if you look at our operations in the field, and you go back and you listen to Ernie's calls from other CEOs, many of them are talking about their wells are not as productive.
当我们谈论我们的公司时,我们对我们的未来和员工感到非常兴奋。但有一点常常被忽视,那就是我们的技术卓越性。如果你看看我们在现场的操作,并回顾听听Ernie和其他CEO们的电话会议,许多人都在谈论他们的油井生产力不如预期。

We're not as productive last year as they were the year before. But for seven years in a row, we've grown our productivity in the Delaware basin, while others could not. And I think that getting back to the assets are good, but even in comparable settings where others have the same assets that we do, our team, and this is our team, this is not me, this is our team, has been able to go above and beyond in terms of the way they look at the subsurface.
去年的生产力不如前一年。但我们在德拉瓦盆地的生产力已经连续七年增长,而其他公司却无法做到这一点。我认为,虽然资产很重要,但即使在其他公司拥有与我们相同资产的情况下,我们的团队——这不仅仅是我个人的功劳,这是我们整个团队的功劳——在研究地下构造方面已经超越了其他公司,表现得更为出色。

“And we started about five or six years ago to revamp our teams so that, back to your point about making sure you get the best players, and you put the best players where they can really excel, and then you give them the tools to excel in that position, then they can do amazing things. And our team has developed what we believe to be proprietary processes around subsurface evaluation that has led to frag designs that are far exceeding the deliverability of some of our competition. And I think that when we're so often talking about debt reduction, share repurchases, and all of that's important because that delivers value.
我们大约在五六年前开始重新组建团队,回到你刚才提到的点,即确保你找到最优秀的人才,并将他们放在最能发挥他们潜力的位置,然后为他们提供在该位置上取得卓越成就的工具,那么他们就能够做出惊人的成绩。我们的团队开发了一些我们认为是专有的地下评估流程,这些流程引导了压裂设计,使得我们在产能上远远超过了一些竞争对手。我认为,当我们经常谈论减少债务、回购股票时,这些确实很重要,因为这些措施能够带来价值。

We're transferring value to our shareholders and all of that. But the basis and what helps continuing to deliver the most oil that delivers all this cash flow is from these guys who are technically, I use guys generically, who technically are delivering incredible results. And in the subsurface modeling far exceeds anything I ever thought we would do.”
我们正在将价值转移给股东,等等。但基础以及帮助我们继续开采出最多石油并带来所有现金流的是这些技术人员,我用的是通用术语,他们在技术上取得了令人难以置信的成果。在地下建模方面,他们的成果远远超出了我的想象"。

“You would ask me five or six years ago, will we be able to model these reservoirs to take them from what used to be a 600 barrel a day well to over a 10,000 barrel a day well? And to be better than those that are offsetting us? I wouldn't have believed it. But you know, Oxy used to be a company that would go into countries where no other companies would go. We kind of have scratched that now. What we'd rather do is tackle the reservoirs that others either don't want to do or can't get as much out of as we can.
如果你五六年前问我,我们是否能够通过模型将这些油藏从以前每天600桶的产量提升到超过每天10,000桶,并且比那些与我们相邻的油田更出色?我可能不会相信。你知道,Oxy过去是一家会进入其他公司不愿去的国家的公司,我们现在已经不再这样做了。我们更愿意做的是处理那些其他公司不愿意或无法从中获取尽可能多资源的油藏。
Idea这是能够说服巴菲特的点。
And we've done that around the world. We're continuing to do it here. I'm excited about it.
我们已经在世界各地做到了这一点。我们将继续在这里这样做。我对此感到非常兴奋。

Appendix.12.《2024-02-24 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》

This year, I would like to describe two other investments that we expect to maintain indefinitely. Like Coke and AMEX, these commitments are not huge relative to our resources. They are worthwhile, however, and we were able to increase both positions during 2023.
今年,我想谈谈另外两项我们预计会长期持有的投资。与可口可乐和美国运通一样,这些投入相对于我们的资源并非庞大,但它们确实值得持有,我们也在 2023 年增持了这两家公司。

At yearend, Berkshire owned 27.8% of Occidental Petroleum’s common shares and also owned warrants that, for more than five years, give us the option to materially increase our ownership at a fixed price. Though we very much like our ownership, as well as the option, Berkshire has no interest in purchasing or managing Occidental. We particularly like its vast oil and gas holdings in the United States, as well as its leadership in carbon-capture initiatives, though the economic feasibility of this technique has yet to be proven. Both of these activities are very much in our country’s interest.
截至年末,伯克希尔持有西方石油 27.8% 的普通股,并持有一批可在五年多时间内以固定价格大幅增持的认购权证。尽管我们非常看重现有持股和这些期权,伯克希尔并无意收购或经营西方石油。我们尤其欣赏其在美国境内庞大的油气储量,以及在碳捕集领域的领先地位,虽然该技术的经济可行性尚待验证。这两项业务都符合美国的利益。

Not so long ago, the U.S. was woefully dependent on foreign oil, and carbon capture had no meaningful constituency. Indeed, in 1975, U.S. production was eight million barrels of oil-equivalent per day (“BOEPD”), a level far short of the country’s needs. From the favorable energy position that facilitated the U.S. mobilization in World War II, the country had retreated to become heavily dependent on foreign – potentially unstable – suppliers. Further declines in oil production were predicted along with future increases in usage.
不久之前,美国还严重依赖进口石油,碳捕集也几乎无人问津。事实上,1975 年美国日产油当量(“BOEPD”)仅为 800 万桶,远不能满足国内需求。美国从二战时期有利的能源地位退至对外部(可能不稳定)供应商高度依赖。那时普遍预测,国内产量将进一步下降,而未来需求将持续增加。
 
For a long time, the pessimism appeared to be correct, with production falling to five million BOEPD by 2007. Meanwhile, the U.S. government created a Strategic Petroleum Reserve (“SPR”) in 1975 to alleviate – though not come close to eliminating – this erosion of American self-sufficiency.
长期以来,这种悲观似乎被验证为正确,到 2007 年产量已降至每日 500 万桶油当量(BOEPD)。与此同时,美国政府在 1975 年设立战略石油储备(SPR),以减轻——虽然远未能完全抵消——美国能源自给能力的侵蚀。

And then – Hallelujah! – shale economics became feasible in 2011, and our energy dependency ended. Now, U.S. production is more than 13 million BOEPD, and OPEC no longer has the upper hand. Occidental itself has annual U.S. oil production that each year comes close to matching the entire inventory of the SPR. Our country would be very – very – nervous today if domestic production had remained at five million BOEPD, and it found itself hugely dependent on non-U.S. sources. At that level, the SPR would have been emptied within months if foreign oil became unavailable.
然后——哈利路亚!——2011 年页岩油开发经济可行,我们的能源依赖宣告结束。如今,美国产量已超过每日 1,300 万桶油当量,欧佩克不再握有主动权。西方石油公司在美国的年产量每年几乎等同于 SPR 的全部库存。如果国内产量仍停留在每日 500 万桶油当量,并且极度依赖海外资源,美国今天将会非常非常紧张;一旦外部石油中断,SPR 可能在数月内耗尽。
Idea
2011-2020年,页岩油导致美国石油公司在资本支出上失控,因为页岩把美国石油变成了一个短周期、可快速加杠杆扩张的生意,管理层和资本市场在很长时间里把‘产量增长’误当成了‘价值创造’,结果把行业推入了 outspend cash flow 的竞赛”。直到 2020 之后,资本市场才基本把这个行业重新训回“先自由现金流、再谈增长”的框架。

1、美国上游、尤其独立页岩油生产商,在 2010 年代被页岩油的高可扩张性推入了“增产优先”的资本开支竞赛。页岩油在 2011 年前后变得经济可行后,美国原油产量从 2011 年的大约 570 万桶/日一路升到 2019 年的约 1230 万桶/日;纽约联储也指出,2011–2019 年美国油气产量大增,油产量超过翻倍,背后主要是压裂技术扩散带来的生产率提升。

2、但从股东回报看,2010s 很大一段时间并不好。Reuters 2019 年对 29 家头部独立页岩油公司的分析写得很直接:这些公司已经连续多年“把产量放在现金流和股东回报前面”,仅 2018 年合计就多花了 66.9 亿美元;到 2019 年末,投资人对能源板块的总结已经是“they outspent cash flow… huge sinks of capital”。也就是说,页岩油让美国产量和能源安全大幅改善,不等于它同时给股东创造了好回报。

3、准确的时间切法是:2011–2014 是第一轮扩张,2015–2016 是油价崩盘后的强制刹车,2017–2019 是价格修复后又一次“证明自己会资本纪律”的阶段,但很多公司仍没有真正做到。到 2020 年疫情与油价暴跌,这套“先增产、后谈回报”的模式基本被打穿;2021–2022 开始,投资者和债权人才真正把行业目标函数改成了“return on capital first”。Reuters 2021 报道说,哪怕油价冲高,页岩油公司也一反过去 boom 时必然大举钻井的模式,因为投资者要求的是financial returns over more volume;Dallas Fed 2022 的调查也直接写到:“Discipline continues to dominate the industry. Shareholders and lenders continue to demand a return on capital.”
Under Vicki Hollub’s leadership, Occidental is doing the right things for both its country and its owners. No one knows what oil prices will do over the next month, year, or decade. But Vicki does know how to separate oil from rock, and that’s an uncommon talent, valuable to her shareholders and to her country.
在Vicki Hollub的领导下,西方石油正为国家和股东做正确的事情。没人能预测未来一月、一年或十年的油价走势,但Vicki懂得如何把石油从岩石里分离出来,这是一项罕见的才能,对股东和国家都极具价值。

Appendix.13.《2024-09-23 America’s Ambitious Climate Plan Is Faltering》

“We really are going to need just about every resource that’s available if demand growth continues at a rapid pace,” said Paul Segal, chief executive of LS Power, which operates natural-gas and renewable projects across the country. Research firm Rhodium Group expects U.S. electricity demand to rise 24% to 29% by 2035, nearly twice the rate it projected a year ago. 
“如果需求增长以快速的速度继续下去,我们真的需要几乎所有可用的资源,”LS Power 的首席执行官保罗·塞加尔说,该公司在全国范围内运营天然气和可再生能源项目。研究公司 Rhodium Group 预计,到 2035 年,美国电力需求将增长 24%至 29%,几乎是去年预测的两倍。

Appendix.14.《2024-09-24 Big Tech Is Rushing to Find Clean Power to Fuel AI’s Insatiable Appetite》

Tech companies are already the biggest purchasers of wind and solar power, but it isn’t enough to meet the round-the-clock needs of data centers. A search on a generative AI platform like ChatGPT uses at least 10 times the energy as a standard one on Google. Emissions from the global build-out of data centers between now and 2030 could equal about 40% of the entire U.S. economy’s annual emissions, Morgan Stanley estimates. 
科技公司已经成为风能和太阳能的最大购买者,但这还不足以满足数据中心的全天候需求。在像 ChatGPT 这样的生成性人工智能平台上进行搜索所消耗的能源至少是谷歌标准搜索的 10 倍。摩根士丹利估计,从现在到 2030 年,全球数据中心的建设所产生的排放可能相当于美国经济年排放总量的约 40%。

The demand is already extending the lives of fossil-fuel power plants and setting back U.S. climate progress and optimism. Meta Platforms META -0.19%decrease; red down pointing triangle recently said its emissions last year were about 70% above 2019 levels. Microsoft’s jumped 40% in the three-year period through June 2023. Google’s surged nearly 50% in the four years through December. Chips, materials and power for data centers, plus overall business growth, were big drivers. 
需求已经在延长化石燃料发电厂的寿命,并且阻碍了美国的气候进展和乐观情绪。Meta Platforms META 最近表示,其去年的排放量比 2019 年水平高出约 70%。微软在截至 2023 年 6 月的三年期间增长了 40%。谷歌在截至 12 月的四年中增长了近 50%。数据中心的芯片、材料和电力,以及整体业务增长,都是主要驱动因素。

Appendix.15.《2024-09-29 Oil Comment: Q&A on OPEC Supply, the Middle East, and China Stimulus》

Q. You're focused on downside risks to your price forecast from a potential full reversal of the extra voluntary OPEC+ production cuts. But how do you see the risks of a price war?
问:您专注于由于可能完全逆转额外自愿的 OPEC+减产而对价格预测的下行风险。但您如何看待价格战的风险?

While spare capacity is high, we continue to think that a price war, where OPEC+ would quickly reduce most of its spare capacity in a very oversupplied market, remains unlikely in 2024-2025. One key reason is that our analysis suggests that the economic incentives for a price war in 2024-2025 are significantly weaker than during the two extended price wars of 1985 and 2014-2016.
虽然闲置产能很高,但我们仍然认为在供应过剩的市场中,OPEC+会迅速减少大部分闲置产能的价格战在 2024-2025 年不太可能发生。一个关键原因是我们的分析表明,2024-2025 年进行价格战的经济动机明显弱于 1985 年和 2014-2016 年两次长期价格战期间。

Starting with 1985, Saudi's share of global crude supply had dropped by 14pp from the early 1980s to nearly 4%. Today Saudi Arabia's crude global market share of about 11% (and especially the market share of OPEC+) remains significantly higher, which reduces the incentives to sharply boost production because the negative effect on prices is larger. The creation of OPEC+ in 2016 to end the price slump has increased the group's market share and incentives to exercise pricing power.
从 1985 年开始,沙特在全球原油供应中的份额从 20 世纪 80 年代初下降了 14 个百分点,降至近 4%。如今,沙特阿拉伯的原油全球市场份额约为 11%(尤其是 OPEC+的市场份额)仍然显著更高,这减少了大幅增加产量的动机,因为对价格的负面影响更大。2016 年成立 OPEC+以结束价格下跌,增加了该集团的市场份额和行使定价权的动机。

The economic incentives to launch a price war also appear weaker than in 2014-2016. The reduction in the price elasticity of US supply likely implies more limited medium-term gains in OPEC+ market share from a price war strategy. While excessive borrowing left US shale vulnerable in 2014, US producers now rely less on external funding, and large public oil firms have strong balance sheets and medium-run strategies of moderate but price insensitive growth. In fact, the market share of private firms (which tend to be more price elastic) in US Lower 48 crude supply has dropped from 60% in 2011 to around 37% in late 2023.
与 2014-2016 年相比,发动价格战的经济动机似乎也较弱。美国供应的价格弹性降低可能意味着通过价格战策略在中期内 OPEC+市场份额的增长更为有限。虽然过度借贷在 2014 年使美国页岩油脆弱,但美国生产商现在较少依赖外部资金,大型公共石油公司拥有强大的资产负债表和中期策略,即适度但对价格不敏感的增长。事实上,美国本土 48 州原油供应中私人公司的市场份额(这些公司往往价格弹性更高)已从 2011 年的 60%下降到 2023 年末的约 37%。

Appendix.16.《2024-10-02 Saudi Minister Warns of $50 Oil as OPEC+ Members Flout Production Curbs》

The Saudi oil minister has said prices could drop to as low as $50 per barrel if so-called cheaters within OPEC+ don’t stick to agreed-upon production limits, according to delegates in the cartel.
据该组织的代表称,沙特石油部长表示,如果 OPEC+内部所谓的作弊者不遵守商定的生产限额,油价可能会降至每桶 50 美元。

The remarks were interpreted by other producers as a veiled threat from the kingdom that it is willing to launch a price war to keep its market share if other countries don’t abide by the group’s agreements, they said.
其他生产商将这些言论解读为该王国发出的隐晦威胁,即如果其他国家不遵守该集团的协议,它愿意发动价格战以保持其市场份额,他们表示。

Despite rising geopolitical tensions, prices are languishing below $75 a barrel—their lowest level in nine months—largely due to slowing economic growth. Saudi Arabia needs prices at $85 per barrel to help fund its economic transformation, analysts say. The weak prices forced OPEC+ members to delay a production increase for two months following a virtual meeting last month until December. The group had originally agreed in June to start easing voluntary cuts in October.
尽管地缘政治紧张局势加剧,油价仍徘徊在每桶 75 美元以下——为九个月来的最低水平——主要是由于经济增长放缓。分析人士称,沙特阿拉伯需要每桶 85 美元的价格来帮助资助其经济转型。疲软的价格迫使 OPEC+成员在上个月的虚拟会议后推迟两个月增加产量,直到 12 月。该组织原本在 6 月同意从 10 月开始放松自愿减产。

The kingdom has shown in the past it can open up the spigots if it feels other producers are taking advantage of its efforts to defend oil prices. Saudi Arabia initiated a price war on oil with Russia in March 2020. The kingdom’s decision to pump to record levels amid the Covid-19 pandemic facilitated a 65% quarterly fall in the price of oil to 17-year lows, with some prices in the U.S. turning negative for the first time ever. Another move by Saudi Arabia to boost production to punish other producers led to a collapse of oil prices to below $10 per barrel in 1986.
该王国过去曾表明,如果认为其他生产国正在利用其努力来捍卫油价,它可以打开阀门。2020 年 3 月,沙特阿拉伯与俄罗斯发起了石油价格战。在新冠疫情期间,该国决定将石油产量提高到创纪录水平,导致油价在季度内下跌 65%,达到 17 年来的最低点,美国的一些油价首次出现负值。1986 年,沙特阿拉伯采取另一项增加产量的举措以惩罚其他生产国,导致油价崩溃至每桶 10 美元以下。

Appendix.17.《2024-10-03 Oil Surges After Biden Says U.S. Discussing Israel Attack on Iran Facilities》

Iran pumped about 3.3 million barrels of oil a day in the second quarter, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Ship-tracking firms and traders say that the country often exports half or more of that output despite existing U.S. sanctions. 
根据美国能源信息署的数据,伊朗在第二季度每天生产约 330 万桶石油。船舶跟踪公司和交易员表示,尽管存在美国的制裁,该国通常出口一半或更多的产量。

Any disruptions to those supplies now would mark an escalation in the conflict and could contribute to diplomatic tensions between Israel and the U.S. after Washington’s yearslong inflation fight. But analysts say that there are a range of potential targets among Iran’s energy infrastructure that could limit spillover impacts on the global economy. 
目前对这些供应的任何干扰都将标志着冲突的升级,并可能在华盛顿多年的通胀斗争之后加剧以色列和美国之间的外交紧张局势。但分析人士表示,伊朗的能源基础设施中有一系列潜在目标,可能会限制对全球经济的溢出影响。

“A lot of what Iran is producing is being consumed internally,” said Gregory Brew, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group who focuses on oil and Iran. That domestic infrastructure “is old, it’s in various states of disrepair. So Israeli strikes against those facilities could have a significant effect on Iran’s economy, even if it doesn’t affect the amount of crude Iran can export.”
“伊朗生产的很多东西都在国内消费,”专注于石油和伊朗的欧亚集团高级分析师格雷戈里·布鲁说。国内基础设施“老旧,处于各种失修状态。因此,以色列对这些设施的打击可能对伊朗经济产生重大影响,即使这不影响伊朗可以出口的原油数量。”

A huge portion of the Islamic Republic’s shipments abroad run through a massive terminal on Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, where skyscraper-sized tankers ferry supplies to refineries in Asia and elsewhere. ClearView Energy Partners recently estimated that an Israeli attack on that facility could add more than $12 a barrel to oil prices—equivalent to about 30 cents a gallon of gasoline—depending on the damage. 
伊斯兰共和国的大部分海外运输通过波斯湾的哈格岛上的一个大型终端进行,摩天大楼大小的油轮将供应品运送到亚洲及其他地区的炼油厂。ClearView 能源合作伙伴最近估计,以色列对该设施的攻击可能会使油价每桶上涨超过 12 美元——相当于每加仑汽油上涨约 30 美分——具体取决于损害程度。

An even bigger fear is whether an Iranian response to such strikes could include an attempted closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint for oil and refined petroleum exports from other Gulf nations. A seven-day interruption in shipments could mean a jump in per-barrel oil prices by as much as $28, ClearView estimated, or about 67 cents a gallon. 
更大的担忧是,伊朗对这种打击的回应是否可能包括试图关闭霍尔木兹海峡,这是一条其他海湾国家石油和精炼石油出口的重要咽喉要道。ClearView 估计,七天的运输中断可能意味着每桶油价上涨多达 28 美元,或每加仑约 67 美分。

“That is the worst-case scenario,” added Brew, of Eurasia Group.
“那是最坏的情况,”欧亚集团的布鲁补充道。

Appendix.18.《2024-10-16 Liberty Energy Inc. (LBRT) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript》

But when you think of the productivity gains of the wells, a lot of that's kind of one-time big gear shifts. In general, next year, the average quality of the drilling location is going to be lower than it was this year. And three or four years from -- out from now, it's going to be lower still. That doesn't mean shale revolution is over ending. It just means we'll see a continued migration up in frac intensity. Or maybe another way to say it is, we'll see a continued migration in that more pounds of sand have to be pumped underground on an annual basis to get the same amount of oil out of the ground on an annual basis.
但当你考虑到井的生产力提升时,很多都是一次性的大规模调整。从总体来看,明年钻探位置的平均质量将低于今年,而三四年后,质量可能还会更低。这并不意味着页岩革命的结束,只是意味着我们将继续看到压裂强度的增加。换句话说,意味着为了从地下提取相同量的石油,年均所需压裂的沙子量将继续增加。

Appendix.19.《2024-11-12 Oil could plunge to $40 in 2025 if OPEC unwinds voluntary production cuts, analysts say》

Oil prices may see a drastic fall in the event that oil alliance OPEC+ unwinds its existing output cuts, said market watchers who are predicting a bearish year ahead for crude.
市场观察人士表示,如果石油联盟 OPEC+解除现有的减产措施,油价可能会大幅下跌,他们预测未来一年原油市场将呈现熊市。

“There is more fear about 2025′s oil prices than there has been since years — any year I can remember, since the Arab Spring,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at OPIS, an oil price reporting agency.
“自阿拉伯之春以来,我记得的任何一年都没有像 2025 年的油价那样令人担忧,”石油价格报告机构 OPIS 的全球能源分析主管汤姆·克洛扎说。

“You could get down to $30 or $40 a barrel if OPEC unwound and didn’t have any kind of real agreement to rein in production. They’ve seen their market share really dwindle through the years,” Kloza added.
“如果欧佩克解散并且没有任何实质性的协议来限制生产,油价可能会降到每桶 30 或 40 美元。他们看到自己的市场份额多年来确实在缩小,”克洛扎补充道。

Appendix.20.《2025-05-07 Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Inc. (OXY) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript》

Vicki Hollub

Okay. I'll answer the second question first. And that is that I just want to go back and share with you some of what we've done to get our portfolio to where it is today. Going way back in time about 10 years ago, we were only producing about 650,000 BOE per day. Now our production is 1.39 million barrels per day. In 2015, 50% of our production was from international locations. Today, 83% is in the United States. We exited several countries but stayed only in the countries that are business focused and where we can see significant upside. In 2015, our oil and gas resources totaled \$8 billion, with \$2.2 billion of that improved. But today, we have \$14 billion of total resources, oil resources with \$4.6 billion in proved reserves. And in 2015, only 16% of our proved reserves and 25% of our total resources were shale. The rest was conventional. And today, 60% of our proved reserves and 55% of our total resources are shale. So what we've done over the past 10 years is we've taken our portfolio and expanded significantly in the shale so that we have more than a decade, maybe up to 15 years of development in the shale. But what people don't usually get is that we also have -- in addition to the shale, we have about \$6 billion identified today of resources and conventional areas around our country -- I mean, our company. So right now that -- and I believe that \$6 billion of additional resources is light when you consider the fact that we're doing AI work in the Gulf of Mexico -- or Gulf of America.
好的,我先回答第二个问题。我想回顾一下我们如何把资产组合发展到今天的水平。大约 10 年前,我们的日产量仅约 65 万桶油当量;如今达到 139 万桶。2015 年,我们 50% 的产量来自海外,如今 83% 位于美国。我们退出了若干国家,只保留具有商业聚焦并具备显著上行潜力的市场。2015 年,我们的油气资源总量为 80 亿桶,其中 22 亿桶已探明;今天,我们拥有 140 亿桶总资源量,其中已探明储量 46 亿桶。2015 年,页岩油仅占探明储量的 16%、总资源的 25%;现在,页岩油占探明储量 60%、总资源 55%。过去 10 年里,我们大幅扩展页岩资产,足以支撑逾 10 年、甚至 15 年的开发。但往往被忽视的是,除页岩油外,我们目前还识别出约 60 亿桶常规资源,我指的是公司范围内的常规区块。我认为这 60 亿桶的估计仍偏保守,特别考虑到我们正在美国湾(墨西哥湾)开展的 AI 工作。

We're also doing some work around water flooding, doing additional enhanced oil recovery there, production optimizations. So the Gulf of America is going to add to the \$6 billion of conventional that we have. Also in Algeria, having just obtained the largest onshore 3D seismic survey, we expect that we'll get out of that upside that we can continue to add to the \$6 billion. And then in Oman, as Ken mentioned, where he was talking about the gas block and what we've discovered there, that could be bigger. There could be -- where you find gas and you see structures around it, that means those other structures could have gas, same with the oil discovery. And we're continuing to make progress in the Block 9 and 27 where we have previously been working.
我们也在开展注水和其他 EOR 项目,优化产量;因此,美国湾将为这 60 亿桶常规资源锦上添花。在阿尔及利亚,我们刚完成最大规模的陆上三维地震勘探,预计会带来增量,从而继续充实这 60 亿桶储量。在阿曼,正如 Ken 所述,我们在气区的发现可能更大;有气的构造周围往往还会有其他含气构造,油藏亦然。我们也在已开发的 9 号、27 号区块持续推进工作。

So we have growth there. So when you look at those 3 areas and the growth potential that we could have, we just haven't done the appraisal work yet that we need to do, but we are almost going to be equivalent from a conventional resource perspective as we are from a shale perspective. And so that's going to extend our development potential well beyond the 15 years because you layer on top of that the fact that this direct air capture technology that we're developing is going to help us extract CO2 that could then enable us to do enhanced oil recovery and not only the reservoirs in the U.S., but the reservoirs in Oman, Algeria and potentially in Abu Dhabi as well.
因此,这些领域都具备增长潜力。综合来看,常规资源量即将与页岩资源量相当。再加上我们正在开发的直接空气捕集技术,可帮助我们提取 CO₂ 并实施 EOR,不仅应用于美国油藏,也适用于阿曼、阿尔及利亚,甚至可能是阿布扎比的油藏,这将把我们的开发潜力远远延伸到 15 年之后。

So we have -- as you were alluding to, we do have a lot of additional resources. So we've made the transformation from an asset standpoint, and we're getting close to rounding the quarter with our debt reduction. I believe that is going to unlock the -- a lot more value for our shareholders than most people have anticipated. So we're pretty excited about that, and ready to keep going with it.
正如你所示意的,我们确实拥有大量额外资源。资产层面的转型已基本完成,债务削减也即将达到关键里程碑。我相信,这将为股东释放出远超多数人预期的价值。对此我们倍感振奋,并准备继续推进。

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