沃伦·巴菲特: 以前他们有一片300万英亩的牧场，每年通过放牧能赚1万块。 突然有一天，他们发现自己的牧场正好坐在二叠纪盆地油田的正上方，那下面的石油储量多到难以想象...
沃伦·巴菲特: 好的，贝基。
Warren Buffett: Okay, Becky.
贝基: 这是梦露理查森的问题。
Becky: This is a question from Monroe Richardson.
《华尔街日报》3 月份报道称，石油生产商的石油产量正在减少，二叠纪盆地的石油产量可能已达到顶峰。
The Wall Street Journal reported in March that oil producers are producing less oil and may have reached their peak in the Permian Basin.
鉴于西方石油公司和雪佛龙公司的油井主要集中在二叠纪盆地的位置，
Given the major positions of both Occidental Petroleum and Chevron in the Permian,
考虑到那里石油的未来前景，您是否可以解释伯克希尔大量持有这两家公司的理由？
would you please explain the rationale for Berkshire’s significant holdings of both those companies, considering that future outlook for oil there?
背景：伯克希尔近期大量买入了西方石油，持有其约20%。
巴菲特:好吧，毫无疑问——石油真的很有趣，而查理对石油的了解要多得多。 您什么时候在特帕克斯菲尔德或其他什么地方买的皇家石油公司股票？那是在我遇见你之前，对吧？
W: Well, there’s no question – it’s really interesting about oil, and Charlie knows way more about oil. When did you buy that Royalty in Terpakersfield or wherever it is? That was before I met you, right?
背景：1959年,巴菲特在朋友的引见下,认识了时年35岁的芒格。在那次会面中,两人一见如故。
背景：巴菲特口中的Royalty皇家公司应该很可能是“荷兰皇家壳牌石油公司”，成立于1890年。如果不对请读者告知。
查理·芒格:是的。不，不在那之前。 但它是…是的，它是。 就在之前。你说得对。是的。
Charlie Munger: Yes. No, it wasn’t before. But it was – yes, it was. It was just before. You’re right.
是的。 而那个讨厌的皇家石油公司仍然每年付给我 70,000 美元。
Yeah. And that goddam Royalty is still paying me $70,000 a year.
巴菲特:你以前买的时候花了多少？
Warren: What did you pay for the –
芒格:1000美元
Charlie: A thousand dollars.
巴菲特:是的。是的。这与二叠纪盆地现在的情况相反。 我父亲在 1964 年去世前购买了价值 1000 美元或 1500 美元的皇家石油股票。他把它们留给了我母亲。
Warren: Yeah. Yeah. Now, that’s the opposite of the Permian. My dad bought $1000 or $1500 worth of Royalty’s before he died in 1964. He left them with my mother.
我母亲把它们留给了她的两个女儿，我姐姐去世了，我妹妹今天就在现场。 她每个月都会收到这些支票，她了解所有这些不同的领域以及皇家石油公司正在生产什么。
My mother left them to her two daughters, and my older sister died, and my younger sister’s here today. And she gets these checks every month, and she knows about all these different fields and what they’re producing.
这就是美国大约一半石油以及石油相关产业的真实写照，另外的另一半是页岩。
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.
而且，你知道，如果你看过视频但从未看过真正的石油，你就永远不会看过在加利福尼亚州的土地上抽出属于皇家石油公司的石油的那种场景。你看到这些涌出的石油。
And, you know, if you’ve gone to the movies and never watched oil, you’ve never watched the things that are pumping out your Royalty’s in California. You see these gushers of oil.
好吧，在二叠纪盆地…这应该让你了解: 在第一天，当你打井的第一天，你知道，收获可能是 12,000 桶，或者可能是 15,000 桶。 而且它甚至——有些危险。 西方石油公司参与进来，我想，一天收获19,000 桶或同价值的其他资源。
Well, in the Permian—and 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 even—it’s dangerous. Occidental had one come in, I think, 19,000 barrels or something like that one day.
在一年、一年半的时间里，它几乎无法产出任何资源了。 而在实际上，它只是变成了另一种不同的生意。
And in a year, year and a half, it becomes practically nothing. It’s just – it’s a different business, in effect.
在美国，这很有趣，我们使用——无论我们使用什么数字，可能是 1100万或是几百万，
好吧，我们每天生产 1100万或几百万桶石油当量。
In the United States, it’s interesting, we use—whatever we use, maybe 11 or a fraction—
Well, we produce 11 or a fraction million barrels of oil equivalent a day.
但如果页岩采集到一定程度停下来了；我的意思是，每天的石油产量会很快下降到 600 万。 好吧，想象一下世界上每天生产 500 万桶
But if shale stopped, I mean, it would drop to 6 million very fast. Well, just imagine taking 5 million barrels a day out of the production in the world.
这时我们继续采集，就等于同时在减少战略石油储备。 战略石油储备是商业油田的最终形态。 此时的油田你不必继续钻探，当然我们在未来的某一天还是要钻探的——这被认为是战略性的，同时它涉及政治。 所以，当你谈论石油生意时，你本质上是在谈论不同类型的多种生意。
And then we’re also taking down our strategic petroleum reserve. Strategic petroleum reserve is the ultimate oil field. You don’t have to drill, it’s just that we’ve got to—and it was supposed to be strategic, but it gets involved in politics. So, there’s – when you talk about the oil business, you’re talking about different kinds of businesses, basically.
我们喜欢西方石油在二叠纪盆地油田的位置；
我们不喜欢我们开始投资西方石油的那个时间位置: 好吧，原油价格开始下降——有一天它下降到每桶 30 美元。 当然，那太疯狂了。
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. That was crazy, of course.
(从你拥有一家石油公司的角度看),如果石油以 X 的价格出售，你知道，你做得很好，石油以 X 的一半的价格出售，你知道，你的成本是一样的。而且它不会改变石油产量，同时效果也不佳，但它也很快降低了美国的石油产量。 所以，我们不知道油价会是多少，但我们非常喜欢西方石油拥有的油田位置，这就是我们几年前投资他们的原因。这曾经看起来像是一个可怕的错误，那时石油市场刚好完全崩溃。
But if oil sells at X, you know, you do very well, and 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, and it looked like it was a terrible mistake, when the oil market just totally collapsed.
然后情况发生了变化，我们买了很多普通股。 在过去的几个月里，他们减少(强制回购)了我们的优先股，这显然是我们不喜欢的。 但如果他们不减少优先股，我们会对他们感到失望。 从他们的角度来看，这很聪明。
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.
所以，我们已经回售了——在 100 亿美元的优先股中，我们可能以 110% 的面值回售其中的 4 亿美元或 5 亿美元。 同时Vicki Hallam 是西方石油公司的一位非凡经理，她的第一份工作是在市政服务公司，那是我在 1942 年买的第一只股票。
So, we’ve taken—of the $10 billion preferred, we’ve gotten maybe $400 million or $500 million of it retired at 110 percent a par. But Vicki Hallam is an extraordinary manager of Occidental. Her first job was with city service. That was the first stock I bought in 1942.
她知道表面之下发生了什么。 我知道它的数学原理，但如果我在油田里工作，我对于应该怎么做连最微不足道的主意都没有。
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.
我的意思是，我可以在我的后院挖两英尺深，这就是我对世界底土的理解。
I mean, I can dig two feet down in my backyard, and that’s my understanding of subsoil in the world.
我无法想象查理从 50 多年、60 年、60 年，大致上，一直在收集月度支票的领域。
或者我姐姐在各个领域工作，在那里他们不停地抽水、抽水和抽水。
I can’t picture the field that Charlie has been collecting that monthly check from, from 50-plus years, 60-well, 60 years, roughly. Or my sister getting at various fields where they just keep pumping and pumping and pumping.
我们在美国很幸运能够生产我们从页岩中获得的那种石油。 但这不是一个可以无限期获取的资源，就像你通过观看有关石油或类似的视频可能会想到的那样。
And we in the United States are lucky to have the ability 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.
查理，你有什么要说的吗？
Charlie, do you have anything?
芒格: 是的，那些页岩井真的很快就被抽干了。如果您喜欢被快速抽干的油井，我们可以将它们呈现给你。
Charlie: Yeah, it really dies fast, those shale wells. If you like quick death in your oil wells, we have them for you.
巴菲特: 同时西方石油公司，他们正在做很多很好的工作。
Warren: But Occidental, they’re doing a lot of good things.
芒格: 是的，他们钻探了很多新的井。
Charlie: Yeah, they do a lot of new wells.
巴菲特：是的。
Warren: Yeah.
芒格：他们正在赚钱，但那是另一种石油。
Charlie: They’re doing it on a profit, but it’s a different kind of oil.
巴菲特： 仅仅是另一种，是的。
Warren: It’s just different, yeah.
这就是美国几乎一半石油生产的真相。并且…
And that’s true of almost half the oil produced in the United States. And…
芒格：那底下虽然有很多石油，但是没有知道怎么生产出来，并且他们在石油领域已经工作了大约50年了。
Charlie: 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.
但是他们在现存的页岩生产中工作了大约50年，然后才找到开采的办法。同时当他们终于能够做到这一点时，开采工艺又变得异常复杂。
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.
只有一种类型的沙子可以起作用。
There’s only one type of sand that works.
巴菲特：你能想象一个水平管道，你知道，也许是一英里半左右吗？ 这与你的想法大相径庭。
Warren: 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.
芒格: 它横向三英里，向下两英里。
当你已经在地下两三英里时，你怎么横向钻两三英里？ 他们已经掌握了很多非常棘手的技术，以便能够从这些油井中提取任何石油。
Charlie: It goes laterally for three miles, two miles down.
How the hell do you drill two or three miles laterally when you’re already two or three miles under the Earth? They’ve mastered a lot of very tricky technology to be able to get any oil out of these wells at all.
Warren: And we love the position with Occidental,
芒格：是的
Charlie: Yeah
巴菲特：我们喜欢让 Vicki 管理它。 并且…
Warren: And we love having Vicki run it. And---
芒格：如果有人能想出另一个魔术的话，那下面会有更多的油。 我们所需要的只是另一个魔术技巧。
Charlie: 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.
巴菲特：但是西方石油也有一些其他的东西。
Warren: But Occidental has some other things, too.
芒格：是的，是的。
Charlie: Yes, yes.
巴菲特：但是，就短期石油经济学来说，石油的价格仍然非常重要。
Warren: But the price of oil still is incredibly important in terms of the economics of short-lived oil.
我的意思是，这一点毫无疑问。
I mean, no question about that.
巴菲特：我们会顺便说一句，你们知道的，有种猜测说我们在购买(石油公司的)控制权。
Warren: And we will incidentally, you know, there’s speculation about us buying control.
我们不会购买控制权。我们已经正确得管理了资金。
We’re not going to buy control. We’ve got right management money.
我并不想知道怎么运营石油生意，查理并不介意知道石油的方方面面。
We wouldn’t know what to do with it, Charlie wouldn’t mind knowing what to do with oil.
芒格：正如你要购买煤炭，标准是寻找癌症一类的东西一样。你现在甚至不能通过借钱的方式扩建煤矿。真的，这非常不时尚。
Charlie: Admitting you’re buying coal and be like going out and seeking to acquire a cancer or something. You can’t even borrow to expand a coal mine now. It’s really, it got very unfashionable.
巴菲特：是的。 我们坦率地认为有些事情是荒谬的。 在两边，在两边，在两个极端。
Warren: Yeah. And we think frankly some of the things that are ridiculous. And on both sides, on both, in both extremes.
我的意思是，你正在处理物理学问题，你正在处理…你突然发现，这居然还涉及能源相关的非常重要的政治立场。
I mean, you’re dealing with physics, you’re dealing with, you know, it’s the politicization of positions on something that’s enormously important in terms of energy.
这个想法只适合煽动者、筹款人、咨询组织和内部的每个人。
It just lends itself to demagogues and fundraisers and advisory organizations and everybody inside.
我们将做出理性的决定，我们不认为生产石油有悖于美国。
And we will make rational decisions and we do not think it’s un-American to be producing oil.
芒格：就前景而言，美国没有可与二叠纪相提并论的油田。
Charlie: And there is no oil basin in the United States that compares to the Permian in terms of promise.
巴菲特：是的，我们很幸运。
Warren: Yeah, we were lucky.
芒格：好吧…
Charlie: Well —
巴菲特：我们不知道它在那里直到
Warren: We didn’t know it was there until
芒格：是的
Charlie: Yes
巴菲特：不是很多年前。
Warren: not that many years ago.
芒格：它有点用完了，他们一直知道那里有页岩油，但他们认为它永远无法开采。
Charlie: It had sort of been used up and they always knew the shale oil was there but they thought it was going to stay unrecoverable forever.
巴菲特：我买的第二只或第三只股票是德克萨斯太平洋土地信托公司，他们在二叠纪拥有 300 万英亩的土地，他们每年的放牧收入为 10000或者类似的数字。他们实际上是直接坐在了难以想象数量的石油油田的上面，同时从结构上看那家公司现在实际上是雪佛龙的一部分，并通过德士古公司做了各种各样的事情。
Warren：The second or third stock I bought was Texas Pacific Land Trust and they owned three million acres down there in P and they were, they were grazing revenues of ten thousand 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 went through Texaco and did all kinds of things.
他们仍然，他们仍然是德克萨斯太平洋土地信托公司，但很多财产都是由雪佛龙公司拥有的，他们的矿产属于雪佛龙公司，这是一些优势。 但是，嗯，这是一个有趣的话题，我会这样说，我们不会提出任何控制西方石油公司的要约，但我们喜欢我们拥有的股份。 我们将来可能会或可能不会拥有更多股票，但我们肯定有认股权证，作为原始交易的一部分，我们以每股 59 美元左右的价格获得了大量股票。 这些认股权证会持续很长时间，我很高兴我们拥有它们。
And they’re still, they’re still a Texas Pacific Land Trust but a lot of that property is fee owned by, their minerals are owned by Chevron, which is some advantage. But it’s, well, it’s an interesting subject I’ll put it that way and we will not be making any offer for control of Occidental but we love the shares we have. We may or may not own more in the future but we certainly have warrants on which we got as part of the original deal on a very substantial amount of stock at around $59 a share. And those warrants last a long time and I’m glad we have them.
巴菲特：好的，七号站台提问…
Warren：Okay, station seven…