荷蘭皇家殼牌有限公司將出資700億美元，收購英國天然氣集團（簡稱BG），這是近十年來全球能源行業最大一筆并購交易。去年油價暴跌導致行業壓力重重，整合勢在必行，此交易即是明證。關于這筆交易，以下是你需要知道的五件事。

1. 這起并購對行業來說具有里程碑的意義。一般來說，當收購某家石油天然氣儲備公司的股票比自行鉆探的價格更便宜時，能源行業就會發生大型并購。自去年1月以來，BG的股價下跌超過50%，殼牌現在收購BG非常合算，因為它無法用低于收購價的資金配置出堪比BG規模的資產組合。雖說比起15年前，能源業有能力進行收購和適合被收購的公司都少了很多，但行業收購的邏輯現今同樣適用。

2. 并購不是為了壯大規模，而是為了效益。上一波石油巨頭涌現并購潮，目的是為了成立規模更大、資金實力更強的公司，因為只有實力夠強的公司才能不斷尋找新的油田儲備，而新油田要么在技術風險高的地方（如墨西哥灣或美國的阿拉斯加州），要么是在政治風險高的地方（如俄羅斯、巴西和哈薩克斯坦）。相比之下，這次合并的目的是壓縮供應鏈成本，過去十年里，石油行業一直想當然地以為中國和印度對能源的需求會永遠高速增長，于是各家公司肆無忌憚地粗放擴張。如今，殼牌和BG要確保股東收益可以穩步增長，面臨的壓力都不小（殼牌曾經承諾高現金分紅，還拋出250億美元的股票回購計劃證明實力）。

未來幾年，兩家公司計劃每年至少節省25億美元成本。比如在澳大利亞東北部的昆士蘭，兩家公司的大型液化天然氣項目位置比較接近，共享基礎設施有利于提高雙方效益。此外，今年1月，殼牌凍結了200億美元的箭頭能源項目（與中石油成立的合資公司）；去年12月，BG確認昆士蘭柯蒂斯液化天然氣項目損失了20億美元。總之，兩家公司期望2016年能將資本支出壓縮到400億美元以下，去年同期支出為450億美元。此項交易將催生全球最大的天然氣生產商，規模超過了埃克森，也是迄今西歐最大的綜合性石油生產商，不過未來三年內，殼牌將削減300億美元的非核心資產。也就是說，未來三年該公司規模可能不會擴大，反而會精簡一些。

3. 可以說，這筆交易里天然氣的地位更重要，而不是石油。兩家公司都是液化天然氣重要的生產商，近來這項貿易在全球飛速發展。究其原因，一是中國和印度兩國轉換能源消費模式，轉向比煤炭污染更少的能源，鞏固了對液化天然氣的長期需求；二是歐洲需求增長，因為不能再僅靠俄羅斯供應天然氣了。合并后的公司將成為全球最大的液化天然氣生產商，而且在東非和澳大利亞有未開發的資產。

4. 深水石油開采也是一大重點。海洋石油開發是殼牌和BG優先考慮的合作領域。周三兩家公司聯合聲明稱，十年后海上石油產量將上升到近60萬桶/天，遠高于目前的15萬桶/天。要做到這一點，他們需要好好開發在巴西的資產，因其合作伙伴——巴西國家石油公司腐敗蔓延且成本膨脹，許多新發現大型油田的開采一直停滯不前。

5. 并購與美國的頁巖氣無關。盡管廉價頁巖氣的出現，使兩家公司對美國進口液化天然氣方面的投資都遭受了損失（兩家公司在美國有五個以上再氣化終端）。但二者都不是美國本土頁巖氣的主要生產商。沒錯，BG是收購了德克薩斯、路易斯安那和賓夕法尼亞的大片頁巖油氣田，但每天石油產量不足6萬桶，投資開發該項目的計劃也一再推遲。（財富中文網）

譯者:魏永麗

審校:夏林

Royal Dutch Shell Plcis taking over BG Group PlcBRGYY 27.50% in a $70 billion deal, the biggest the energy industry has seen in over a decade, and the clearest sign yet of consolidation pressures caused by last year’s collapse in oil prices. Here’s what you need to know.

1. It’s a landmark moment for the sector.Big mergers in the energy industry typically happen when it becomes cheaper to buy oil and gas reserves on the stock market than to drill for them. BG’s shares had fallen over 50% since January last year, and there was no way Shell could develop a comparable portfolio of assets organically for less than what it’s paying for BG today. Even if the number of potential candidates for such deals is smaller than it was 15 years ago, the same logic will surely apply to some other oil and gas companies out there.

2. It’s not about size, it’s about efficiency.The last wave of oil mega-mergers was all about needing a bigger, stronger balance sheet because in order to replace reserves, oil majors were having to go to places which either involved more technological risks (like the Gulf of Mexico or Alaska) or political ones (like Russia, Brazil and Kazakhstan). By contrast, this merger is about squeezing costs out of the supply chain, after a decade in which the industry got fat on the assumption that the demand of China and India for energy could never be satisfied. Shell and BG need to ensure that returns to shareholders can be sustained (Shell was quick to promise higher cash dividends and a $25 billion share buyback program to justify its rationale).

The two companies aim to save at least $2.5 billion a year in costs now and more in years to come. One example of this is in Queensland, north-east Australia, where the two companies have big LNG projects relatively close to each other, and where sharing infrastructure costs will improve the economics of both. Shell had frozen its $20 billion Arrow project (a joint venture with Petrochina) in January, while BG wrote $2 billion off its Queensland Curtis LNG project in December. In all, they expect to squeeze capital expenditure below $40 billion by 2016, from over $45 billion last year. Although the deal will create a bigger gas producer than Exxon, and by far western Europe’s largest integrated player, it will be looking to shed $30 billion of non-core assets within three years. In three years’ time, the company may not end up being much bigger, but it will be a lot leaner.

3. This deal is arguably about gas more than it is about oil.Both companies are big players in the fast-growing global trade in liquefied natural gas (LNG), a trade underpinned by the long-term imperatives of switching China and India to energy sources that pollute less than coal, and giving Europe alternatives to Russian gas. The combined company will be the biggest LNG producer in the world, with a strong portfolio of as-yet undeveloped assets in East Africa and Australia.

4. It’s also about deep-water oil production.Offshore is the other area of business that Shell and BG are prioritising. In a joint presentation Wednesday, they forecast that output from offshore could rise to nearly 600,000 barrels a day by the end of the decade from just under 150,000 b/d today. To do that, they’ll need a big improvement in their fortunes in Brazil, where the development of huge new discoveries has been hobbled by rampant corruption and cost inflation at their partner, Petrobras.

5. It most definitely isn’t about U.S. shale–except inasmuch as cheap shale gas has undermined the math behind the two companies’ investments in importing LNG into the U.S. (where they have no fewer than five regasification terminals). Neither company is a major player in shale from the ‘lower 48′ U.S. states. True, BG has bought acreage in Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, but it produces the equivalent of less than 60,000 barrels of oil a day from them and has repeatedly put off spending big money on developing them.