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A grand supply agreement between America, Saudi Arabia and Russia might boost the oil price, but only temporarily.
美国、沙特阿拉伯和俄罗斯之间的一项重大供应协议可能会推高油价，但只是暂时的。
"The price war has become largely irrelevant," says Ben Luckock of Trafigura, a trading company.
贸易公司托克集团的Ben Luckock表示：“价格战基本上已无关紧要。”
Saudi production now seems far less important, he argues, than the pandemic's historic destruction of oil demand.
他认为，现在沙特的石油生产似乎远不如流行病对石油需求的历史性破坏重要。
Covid-19 is obliterating this at such an astonishing rate that analysts cannot adjust their models quickly enough.
Covid-19正以如此惊人的速度抹去这一切，以至于分析师们无法快速地调整他们的模型。
Bernstein, a research firm, estimates that demand in the first half of the year may be 10%, or even 20%, below what it was in 2019.
研究公司Bernstein估计，今年上半年的需求可能会比2019年低10%，甚至20%。
In the past 35 years demand has only twice been lower than in the preceding year—in 2008 and 2009.
在过去35年中，需求只比前一年——2008年和2009年，低了两倍。
Yet production has been slow to respond. That is only in part because of the price war.
但生产对此的反应一直都很慢。这只是价格战的部分原因。
Once a shale well is drilled, there are only marginal savings from stopping production.
一旦页岩井开钻，停产只会带来很少的边际储蓄。
Many oil companies are hedged and continue pumping in the hope prices will rise.
很多石油公司都进行了对冲，并继续开采，以期油价上涨。
Even when firms slash spending, output may not drop quickly. On March 24th Chevron, an American supermajor,
即使公司削减支出，产量可能也不会迅速下降。3月24日，全球六大石油化工公司之一的美国雪佛龙
said that it would cut capital spending by 20% this year, but that production in 2020 would roughly match that in 2019.
称其今年将削减20%的资本支出，但2020年的产量将与2019年大致相当。
It looks possible that supply will not just exceed demand for oil now but fill the capacity to store it.
现在看来，石油供应可能不仅会超过需求，而且还会填补储存石油的能力。
Bernstein reckons that there could be over 735m barrels of extra crude this year,
Bernstein认为，今年可能会有超过7.35亿桶的额外原油，
and only about 500m barrels of storage available in the OECD, a club of mainly rich countries, and oil tankers.
而在主要由富国和油轮组成的OECD中，仅有约5亿桶的储油可用。
In the face of such a demand shock, "a production cut that takes a month or two to implement won't do much,"
面对这样的需求冲击，“需要一两个月才能实施的减产措施不会起多大作用，”
argues Damien Courvalin of Goldman Sachs, a bank.
高盛投资公司的Damien Courvalin说到。
He contends that a production limit in Texas would slow the consolidation that America's shale industry needs to be competitive in the long term.
他认为，德克萨斯州的产量限制将减缓美国页岩气行业需要形成长期竞争力的整合。
Government stimulus might help to boost demand.
政府的刺激措施可能有助于刺激需求。
But the essential fix to bring the market back into balance, reckons Mr Luckock, is a painful one: even lower oil prices.
但Luckock认为，让市场恢复平衡的关键措施是痛苦的：更低的油价。
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