VOA慢速英语 2007 1130
时间：2018-12-07 作者：英语课 分类：VOA慢速英语2007年（十一）月
This is the VOA Special English Economics 1 Report.
Pumping oil in Bahrain
When we think of oil, the part of the world that comes to mind first may be the Middle East. But petroleum 2 development takes place worldwide.
Nigeria, for example, is the largest oil producer in Africa and the eleventh largest producer in the world. Russia is the world's second largest exporter of oil and the top exporter of natural gas.
But the country that produces and exports more oil than any other is Saudi Arabia. The Saudis hold one-fourth of the world's proven oil reserves.
Last year, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf 3 countries produced about twenty-eight percent of the world's oil supply. The United States Energy Department says they also held fifty-five percent of known reserves.
The other Gulf producers are Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Iran has ten percent of the world's proven oil reserves. Iraq is also estimated to have a large supply of oil, and unexplored areas may hold much more.
In nineteen sixty Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela formed the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Today OPEC has twelve members. The newest is Angola which joined this year.
High oil prices have brought new attention to OPEC. Its members produce about forty percent of the world's oil. But two of the world's top three oil exporters, Russia and Norway, are not OPEC members.
Its influence may have reached a high point during the oil crisis 4 connected to the nineteen seventy-three Arab-Israeli war. Arab oil producers boycotted 5 the United States, western Europe and Japan because of their support for Israel.
Since then, new discoveries and increased production in areas including countries of the former Soviet 6 Union have provided more oil.
National oil companies are estimated to control about eighty percent of the world's oil supply. In recent years, rising oil prices have led more governments to act, either directly or indirectly 7, to take control of their oil industries.
President Hugo Chavez has moved to nationalize oil operations in Venezuela. And in Russia, a series of actions resulted in state-owned Rosneft gaining control of reserves held by Yukos. Yukos was Russia's largest private company, until the government said it owed billions of dollars in taxes and jailed its founder 8, Russia's richest man.
And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter.
- He is studying economics,which subject is very important.他正在学习经济学，该学科是很重要的。
- One can't separate politics from economics.不能把政治与经济割裂开来。
- The Government of Iran advanced the price of petroleum last week.上星期伊朗政府提高了石油价格。
- The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。
- The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
- There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。
- He had proved that he could be relied on in a crisis.他已表明，在紧要关头他是可以信赖的。
- The topic today centers about the crisis in the Middle East.今天课题的中心是中东危机。
- Athletes from several countries boycotted the Olympic Games. 有好几国的运动员抵制奥林匹克运动会。
- The opposition party earlier boycotted the Diet agenda, demanding Miyaji's resignation. 反对党曾杯葛国会议程，要宫路下台。
- Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
- Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。
- I heard the news indirectly.这消息我是间接听来的。
- They were approached indirectly through an intermediary.通过一位中间人，他们进行了间接接触。