据12月22日Trade Arabia报道，世界各国正竞相宣布积极的应对气候变化的计划。这些计划带来的能源转型已经引发了人们对电动汽车(ev)的兴奋，推动了大量投资。电动汽车被视为是在减少污染和减少对石油的依赖方面发挥着关键作用的工具。

当然，市场对石油的一些需求来自于汽车。要知道，乘用车占全球石油需求的25%，即2500万桶/天。因此，可以说电动车在减少碳排放方面扮演着重要的角色。但全球范围内的内燃机(ICE)车辆可能需要几十年的时间来逐步淘汰。目前地球上有超过14亿辆汽车，每年大约有1亿辆新车被购买。

毫无疑问，政府可以采取措施鼓励人们使用电动汽车，并且也是一直在这样做的。2009年，奥巴马政府实施了“旧车换现金”(cash for clunkers)计划，该计划是提供3500至4500美元来将一辆较旧、燃油效率较低的汽车换为一辆效率更高的新车。事实证明，这种做法非常受欢迎，以至于计划资金不得不翻了三倍，达到近30亿美元。类似的措施可能有助于加速向电动汽车的过渡，但目前的激励计划好坏参半，德国为售出的前20万辆电动汽车提供9000欧元、7500美元的激励，而中国最近降低了激励力度。考虑到许多电动汽车的价格相对较高，还需要更多的措施来鼓励其广泛使用。

电动汽车对石油需求的影响在短期内是有限的。根据2019年哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)对所有现有电动汽车预测的调查，绝大多数分析得出的结论是，电动汽车的普及将导致2040年石油需求下降不到500万桶/天。因此，虽然电动汽车很重要，但它们不会很快消除我们对石油的依赖。且其本身也存在着环境代价，要知道，发电和建造电动汽车需要大量采矿。

除了汽车，石油还渗透到日常生活的许多方面。石油化工产品塑料以及许多其他日常材料要消耗1200万桶/天的石油，航空和航运也要消耗1200万桶/天的石油。卡车运输每天消耗1700万桶石油，电力方面要消耗500万桶/天，建筑方面要消耗800万桶/天。同时，工业用途需要600万桶/天，其剩余其他方面需要消耗1700万桶/天。因此，要使石油需求降至零，我们不仅需要清除地球上所有的汽车，还需要清除卡车、轮船、飞机以及各种工业和石化应用产品。

值得注意的是，在接下来的40年里，不可能完全停止使用石油，但这不应妨碍在力所能及的地方采取措施减少石油的使用，因此人们应该仔细考虑关于能源的投资决策。

以牺牲石油和天然气为代价向可再生能源投入资金，这从长期而言是一个强有力的发展方向，与气候目标有着密切关系。近年来能源类股的表现不佳，进一步推动了可再生能源的发展。但是，由于可再生能源的发展减少了对石油和天然气的需求，那么，这些公司在油气方面的投资是否变得不那么有利可图了呢？答案是，并没有。2011年至2019年，全球石油需求以1% -1.5%的速度持续增长。因此，必须从别的方面来寻找油气行业回报表现不佳的原因。

2008年，当油价为每桶120美元，利率不断下降时，资金被分配到一项新的技术突破上，即美国的页岩压裂技术。但与许多投资热潮一样，过多的资金被分配，让这些投资埋下了灭亡的种子。

最近，石油生产商把注意力集中在创造自由现金流和利润上，而不是不惜一切代价提高产量。这种资本纪律和负面情绪标志着这是一个投资周期的低谷期，而不是高峰期。

尽管由于目前新冠肺炎疫情引发的需求不足，欧佩克和俄罗斯仍有大量石油供应中断，但石油行业新项目投资不足的问题已持续了两年多。一旦石油供应被大幅削减，能够在这场危机中生存下来的生产商将开始增加供应。

环境问题是投资着需要考虑的核心问题，关键是要对能量转换的路径进行深入的分析。作为分析的一部分，必须将“正常的”繁荣和萧条投资周期与能源转型的长期趋势和影响分开。电动汽车可能是石油行业走向末路的其中一方面的影响，但在未来几十年里，石油行业仍将是全球经济不可或缺的一部分。

王佳晶 摘译自 Trade Arabia

原文如下：

Oil, electric vehicles driving climate change plans

Countries around the world are rightly racing to announce aggressive climate change plans. The energy transition resulting from these plans has driven excitement about, and significant investment in, electric vehicles (EVs). These are seen as having a crucial role to play in reducing pollution and our dependence on oil.

Certainly, some of our appetite for oil stems from our cars. Passenger vehicles account for 25% of global oil demand – or 25 million barrels per day (bpd). So EVs have a role to play in reducing this. But the global fleet of internal-combustion-engine (ICE) vehicles could potentially take decades to phase out. There are currently more than 1.4 billion ICE vehicles on the planet, with around 100 million new ones bought every year.

Governments can undoubtedly take steps to incentivise the adoption of EVs and have long-sought to do so. In 2009, the Obama administration ran the 'cash for clunkers' programme, which provided between $3,500 and $4,500 for trading in an older, less fuel-efficient car for a new higher-efficiency one. This proved so popular that its funding had to be tripled to nearly $3 billion. Similar measures could help to accelerate the transition to EVs, but current incentive plans are mixed, Germany offers 9,000 EUR, the US $7,500 for the first 200,000 models sold while China has recently reduced incentives. Much more will be needed to incentivise widespread adoption, particularly given the relatively high price point of many EVs.

EVs ability to impact oil demand will be limited in the short term. According to a 2019 Columbia University survey of all available EV projections, the great majority of analysis concludes that EV uptake will cause a decline in oil demand of less than 5 million bpd by 2040.[2] So while EVs are important, they are not going to eradicate our reliance on oil any time soon. They also have environmental costs of their own, both in electricity generation and in the extensive mining required to construct them.

Quite apart from cars, oil permeates our lives in many ways. Petrochemicals – the basis of plastics and many other everyday materials – account for 12 million bpd, and aviation and shipping for another 12 million bpd. Trucking uses 17 million bpd, power 5 million and buildings 8 million. Meanwhile, industrial uses account for 6 million bpd, and the combination of other smaller uses accounts for a further 17 million.[3] So for oil demand to fall to zero, we would need to rid the Earth not only of all ICE cars, but also of trucks, ships, aeroplanes, and myriad industrial and petrochemical applications.

We are not, then, going to be able to stop using oil entirely in the next 40 years. That shouldn’t prevent us from taking steps to reduce oil usage where we can. But we should also think very carefully about the investment decisions we make with regard to energy.

The long-term theme of allocating capital to renewables at the expense of oil and gas is an strong one and talks to the important climate aims noted above. This theme has been further encouraged by the underperformance of energy stocks over recent years. But has energy investing by the companies in the sector become less profitable because renewables are reducing demand for oil and gas?

In a word, no. Between 2011 and 2019, global oil demand grew at a consistent rate of 1-1.5%. So we must look elsewhere for the cause of the underperformance of sector returns. The answer lies in the boom-and-bust capital cycle that has driven oil supply since 1859, when the first barrel of oil was sold.

In 2008, when oil was selling for $120 a barrel and interest rates were falling, capital was being allocated to a new technological breakthrough: US shale fracking. But as with many investment booms, too much money was allocated, so that these investments sowed the seeds of their own demise.

Recently, oil producers have focused on the generation of free cash flow and profit instead of production growth at any cost. This capital discipline along with negative investor sentiment marks the bottom of an investment cycle, not a top.

Although plenty of oil supply remains offline in OPEC and Russia, as a result of the current virus-induced lack of demand, there have now been more than two years of underinvestment in new capital projects in the oil industry. Once the supply of oil has been cut too deeply, producers that can survive this crisis will start to increase returns.

Environmental concerns are at the core of our investment thinking. Key to this is a thoughtful analysis of the path of energy transition. As part of this analysis, we must separate the ‘normal’ boom/bust investment cycle from the long-term trends and implications of energy transition. EVs may be one chapter of the book of the eventual demise of the oil industry, but they are not the whole story. The oil industry will remain a vital and necessary part of the global economy for some decades to come.