Not exactly what they seem to be

摘要

Leading oilmen gathered this week in London for the "Oil & Money" conference, an annual expense-account jamboree often preoccupied with the industry's woes. This year, though, the tone was cheerful. Jeroen van der Veer, head of Royal Dutch/Shell, reassured his audience that Americans are "still driving their suvs to Wal-Mart." Lord Browne, the boss of BP, gave a sunny speech insisting that without petroleum "the world would be a dark, cold and miserable place." The explanation for such exuberance? The remarkable rise in oil prices-from around $10 a barrel in 1998 to an all-time nominal record of $55.67 this week-which has left leading western oil companies awash with cash. On October 28th, Royal Dutch/Shell, which has had a rough time this year due to a scandal involving exaggerated oil reserves, posted a whopping 120% rise in third-quarter profits, to $5.4 billion. Earlier in the week, BP revealed that its third-quarter profits shot up by 43% on a year earlier, to nearly $4 billion.