翻译考试：稀土价格暴跌 企业开发热情骤减

翻译考试：稀土价格暴跌 企业开发热情骤减

Prices Of Rare Earths Succumb To Gravity

　　Companies that bet on rare earths as a hot commodity play arecanceling investments or switching attention to other metals likegold after being caught by a sharp fall in prices this year.

　　那些将稀土当做热门大宗商品并在其身上下注的企业，目前正纷纷取消在这方面的投资，或是将注意力转向黄金等其他金属，稀土价格今年的大幅下跌令它们遭了秧。

　　While smaller in size than industry heavyweights like Molycorp Inc. and Lynas Corp. Ltd., thesemining companies are responsible for millions of dollars of spending each year to find and developelements used in products ranging from iPads to Prius cars.

　　这些公司虽然在规模方面比采矿业龙头企业Molycorp Inc.和Lynas Corp.等要小，但它们每年用于稀土勘探和开发的资金达数亿美元。稀土被广泛用于从平板电脑iPad到油电混合动力轿车普锐斯(Prius)等诸多产品。

　　Many of them capitalized on fears of a China-induced supply shortage of rare earths two years agoto attract new investors and debut on some of the world's biggest stock markets. Some -- likeAustralia's Kimberley Rare Earths Ltd. -- were so confident of the commodity's outlook thattheyenshrined it in their name.

　　许多这类采矿企业都利用中国两年前人为制造的稀土供应短缺所引发的恐惧来吸引新的投资者，并借此在一些世界上最大的股市成功上市。它们中的一些企业，如澳大利亚的金伯利稀土公司(Kimberley Rare Earths Ltd.)，对稀土的市场前景是如此充满信心，以至于它们在公司名称里加进了稀土一词。 考试用书

　　But now, these companies have started to turn their back on rare earths as fears ofoverinvestment and a supply glut drive down prices of some elements by as much as 80%. Withsentiment in the wider mining industry souring on concerns over the slow pace of the globaleconomic recovery, many of them are also finding it harder to raise cash to fund projects.

　　然而现在，这些公司已开始丧失对稀土的兴趣，因为市场对稀土行业过量投资以及供应过剩的担忧已经导致一些稀土元素的价格下跌了80%之多。由于采矿业的行业景气状况因对全球经济复苏缓慢的担忧而变差，上述公司中的许多还发现更加难以为开发项目筹集到资金。

　　'All of a sudden we have 400 years of rare earths being drilled out,' said Tim Dobson, managingdirector of Kimberley Rare Earths. 'Smaller projects just aren't viable anymore.'

　　金伯利稀土公司的董事总经理多布森(Tim Dobson)说，突然之间有够全世界使用400年的稀土被钻探出来，规模较小的稀土开采项目已不再具有可行性。