经济学人商业||欧洲钢铁行业步履维艰

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The European steel industry is being clobbered

欧洲钢铁行业步履维艰

注：Clobber [Oxford] : Vt. To hit sb very hard; to affect sb badly or to punish them, especially by making them lose money; to defeat sb completely

But an Austrian firm shows that it is possible to make money making steel—even in Europe

但奥钢联集团证明，即便在欧洲，钢铁制造业仍有利可图。

Lush forests, cowbells ringing and a fairy-tale castle make the alpine foothills above Linz seem alive with “The Sound of Music”. Down in the valley, however, the Austrian city’s skyline is dotted with piles of coal, smoke-belching funnels and the blackened silhouettes of blast furnaces, the home of Voestalpine, an Austrian steelmaker. High-wage, prealpine Linz is not a cheap place to smelt steel. Yet the firm has been adduced as proof that Europe’s steel industry has a future—even as this future once again looks in doubt.

郁郁葱葱的森林，不绝于耳的牛铃声，童话般的城堡，阿尔卑斯山麓一派鲜活，仿佛电影《音乐之声》原景重现。然而山谷之下的林茨则是另一番景象，星星点点的煤堆，浓烟滚滚的烟囱，点缀着这座奥地利城市的天际线，高耸的熔炉也在天际勾勒出一帧帧剪影。奥地利本土钢铁公司奥钢联集团(Voestalpine)就坐落于此。林茨（Linz）位于阿尔卑斯山麓，这里薪资高昂，炼钢成本不低。然而,即便在欧洲钢铁业的未来再次受到质疑之时，该公司依然被视为肩负着欧洲钢铁产业的未来。

注: Adduce [Oxford]-Gre : Vn. To provide evidence, reasons, facts in order to explain sth or show that sth is true (passive voice).

6月26日，奥钢联集团高管在布鲁塞尔召开会议，讨论如何应对日益严峻的挑战。除欧洲外，其他地区的钢铁产业利润都在上升。过去一年，欧洲焦煤价格上涨10%，铁矿石价格翻倍，欧盟排放交易许可证价格与2018年初相比翻三番，多重挤压之下，那本就微薄的利润如今更是所剩无几。

注:

1.在C-E中, enjoy 是一个极为灵活且常见的小词,　可以积累下来-应当注意的是enjoy后面的宾语是积极正面有好处的东西。

2.本段长短句交错，注意学习写作。

3.请亲自动手查一查crimp和margin，看看例句，体会crimp在此处的比喻用法．

The price of steel is going in the opposite direction. Rebar is down by a fifth on the London Metal Exchange. Blame American steel tariffs imposed last March. Two-thirds of the steel imports that would once have gone to America have flooded Europe instead, laments Axel Eggert, director-general of Eurofer, a trade body. The eu imposed a tariff of 25% on imports in February to try to stem the flow. Demands for more protection and bail-outs for ailing steel works are growing.

钢铁价格走势相反。伦敦金属交易所螺纹钢的价格下跌了五分之一。这归咎于美国始于去年3月的钢铁关税。欧洲钢铁协会总干事阿克塞尔•埃格特（Axel Eggert）惋惜道：原本应进入美国市场的钢铁产品，其中三分之二涌入了欧洲。今年2月起，欧盟对进口的钢铁产品征收25%的关税，试图遏制住这股涌入欧盟市场的钢铁洪流。不景气的钢铁产业日渐需要更多保护来纾困。

Not at Voestalpine. “Politics ruined this group from the first,” says Wolfgang Eder, its chief executive. Mr Eder’s scepticism of state intervention is long-standing. He recalls how in the 1980s, shortly after he joined the firm as a junior lawyer, politicians who dominated the company’s board refused to lay off workers made redundant by labour-saving technologies. Idle hands were kept busy with ill-considered forays into shipbuilding (in a landlocked country), making weapons (that neither nato nor the Warsaw Pact wanted) and trading oil (which nearly bankrupted the firm in 1985). By the time Austria joined the eu in 1995, the newly privatised Voestalpine looked in no position to compete with the bloc’s lower-cost plants.

然而奥钢联未必接受政府的保护来纾困。“政治因素一开始就毁掉了这个组织。”奥钢联首席执行官沃尔夫冈•埃德(Wolfgang Eder)说道。埃德先生一直以来都对ZF干预经济持怀疑态度。 他回忆起20世纪80年代，初入公司任初级律师后不久，执掌公司董事会的政客拒绝裁减那些因技术发展而成为冗员的工人们；而是未加考虑之下就让这些工人在一个对轮船没有需求的内陆国造船，在北约和华约都无意向的情况下造武器，甚至涉足石油交易－此举几乎在1985年将公司推向破产的边缘。奥地利于1995年加入欧盟时，刚刚私有化的奥钢联甚至无法与欧盟旗下的低成本工厂竞争。

注：

1. Be in a position to do sth = can

2. Bloc,N. organization, refers to the EU here.(注意指代,上义词和下义词)

但该公司仍具竞争力。过去十年间，其税后利润率逾4%，相比之下，安赛乐米塔尔（ArcelorMittal）税后利润率为2%，蒂森克虏伯（Thyssenkrupp）只有1.8%，而该公司在当地的最大竞争对手塔塔钢铁欧洲股份有限公司（Tata Steel Europe）利润率则低至-7.5%。投资银行法兰克福巴德银行（Baader Bank）的克里斯汀·奥布斯特(Christian Obst)将该公司的成功归功于埃德在21世纪所推行的举措：质量为重，而非数量为重（以质为尊，量次之）。

注：

1. Credit A to B , blame A for/ on B.拟人化使用为写作翻译添彩.

2. Focus on A over B = A overide(s) B.

3.安赛乐米塔尔：安赛乐米塔尔是一家全球性的钢铁公司，其总部位于卢森堡。它是全球最大的钢铁生产公司，并且在使用于汽车、建筑、家用电器和包装的钢材上处于市场领先的位置。

4.蒂森克虏伯：蒂森克虏伯股份公司，德国重工业公司，1999年由Thyssen和Krupp合并而成，德国股票指数DAX的成分公司，在2010年财富世界500强中排名第123位。

That was an unorthodox move. In 2005 Aditya Mittal, now president of ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, mused that companies would need to smelt at least 100m tonnes a year to survive. Voestalpine was too puny to compete with the Mittals of this world when it came to exporting cheap, bog-standard steel to feed China’s construction boom, Mr Eder reasoned. But it could profit from rising demand for high-margin speciality steel from Europe’s growing car and aircraft industries and itself produce some of the even more lucrative rail equipment, car and aircraft components.

埃德不走寻常路。全球最大钢铁公司，安赛乐米塔尔的现任主席阿蒂亚·米塔尔(Aditya Mittal)曾在2005年表示，钢铁公司一年至少需要冶炼1亿吨钢铁才能生存。埃德认为，彼时中国建筑业蓬勃发展，若向中国出售普通的廉价钢铁，奥钢联在米塔尔这种全球性钢企面前简直是小巫见大巫。但欧洲汽车和飞机制造业日益发展，对特殊钢材的需求量与日俱增，这种钢材利润率高，奥钢联能从中获利；与此同时，公司自己也能生产一些利润更高的铁路设备、汽车及飞机零件。

注:

1. Muse, GRE, [ Oxford] Vt, N. ~ about/on/over/upon sth = ponder, 沉思,冥想

2.注意小词Feed, boom 等的用法

3. Puny, GRE, [Oxford] adj. Feeble, small and weak, not very impressive. 瘦小的,羸弱的,不起眼的,微不足道的.

4. Lucrative = profitable. Adj.

Some sheen has come off Voestalpine’s performance. In October it issued its first profit warning since February 2014. Then, in January, it issued another. Investors fret about potential fines relating to an anti-cartel investigation launched by German regulators in 2017. The company’s share price has lost nearly 40% in the past years not quite as bad as ArcelorMittal and ThyssenKrupp, but nearly.

奥钢联集团的表现仍有可圈可点之处。去年10月，公司发布了自2014年2月以来首次盈利预警。随后，今年1月，公司又发布了另一则预警。投资者担心2017年德国监管部门发起的一项反卡特尔调查会招致罚款。过去一年，公司的股价下跌近40%——虽然不及安赛乐米塔尔那样糟糕，但也不相上下了。

Voestalpine’s profits could bounce back faster than those of rivals. Last year they were corroded by cost overruns at new steel plants in America and problems in the German car industry, its biggest customer. The first was a one-off and the second may prove temporary, thinks Ingo Schachel of Commerzbank. And Mr Eder’s firm looks better placed to withstand the eu’s impending climate-friendly rules on carbon emissions. These would hit bigger steelmakers, which use more carbon-intensive methods. This year Voestalpine plans to open its first plant in Linz to experiment with making the stuff with clean hydrogen instead of dirty coking coal. Mr Eder is due to retire on July 3rd. It is up to his successor to ensure that the few scrapes and dents he leaves behind do not turn to rust. 

相比同行，奥钢联集团的利润回弹可能更迅速。去年，受美国新炼钢厂成本超支及德国汽车行业（其最大客户）不景气的双重打击，公司利润深受其害。德国商业银行（Commerzbank）的英戈·沙赫尔(Ingo Schachel)认为，这两大打击中，前者是一次性的，后者可能只是暂时的。看起来，埃德先生的公司对欧盟即将出台的气候友好型碳排放规定有较强适应能力。这一规定将给采用碳密集型工艺的炼钢厂带来巨大影响。今年，奥钢联集团计划在林茨开设第一家用清洁的氢气替代肮脏的焦炭作热源来炼钢的钢铁厂。埃德先生将于7月3日退休。公司未来何去何从，历史遗留问题是否继续为害，取决于埃德先生的继任者如何应对。