澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2015-12-09

Good morning, everyone. Concerns over the global mining industry continue to grow after shares in one of the world’s biggest miners Anglo American fell by more than 10% overnight after the company announced a major restructuring plans. Now Anglo American said it will shrink its workforce¹ by 63% or roughly 85,000 people. The firm also plans on selling huge trunks of its operations, consolidated² links from 6 to 3 businesses. Anglo American has been forced to restructure due to the collapse³ of commodity prices which slashed⁴ profits. And analysts⁵ suggest the other big miners may soon be forced to follow suit.

And speaking of commodity prices, now the price of oil has been hovering⁶ at seven-year lows. And this has forced Woodside Petroleum⁷ to put its takeover plans on hold. Now in September Woodside had launched a 12-billion bid for the Papau New Guinea based oil and gas company oil search. However, in a statement to the Australian security exchange yesterday, Woodside said it is not pursuing any alternative transactions to combine the businesses. Oil Search board has unanimously rejected the proposal in September, calling the bid highly opportunistic. And those low oil prices as well as that pressure on miners has led to falls on global markets. Now a couple of hours for the close. The Dow’s trading down around 0.8%. The Nasdaq is at 0.1% lower while the S&P 500 is down 0.6%. In London, the FTSE lost nearly 1.5%. Checking commodity prices, West Texas Crude is trading at 38 US dollars a barrel. Tapis Crude is at 42 US dollars a barrel. And gold is trading at 1073 US dollars an ounce. The Australian dollar is currently buying 72 US cents, 66 euro cents and 48 pence sterling⁸.

1 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

2 consolidated   

a.联合的

参考例句：

• With this new movie he has consolidated his position as the country's leading director. 他新执导的影片巩固了他作为全国最佳导演的地位。
• Those two banks have consolidated and formed a single large bank. 那两家银行已合并成一家大银行。

3 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

4 slashed   

v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减

参考例句：

• Someone had slashed the tyres on my car. 有人把我的汽车轮胎割破了。
• He slashed the bark off the tree with his knife. 他用刀把树皮从树上砍下。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 analysts   

分析家，化验员( analyst的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• City analysts forecast huge profits this year. 伦敦金融分析家预测今年的利润非常丰厚。
• I was impressed by the high calibre of the researchers and analysts. 研究人员和分析人员的高素质给我留下了深刻印象。

6 hovering   

鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• The helicopter was hovering about 100 metres above the pad. 直升机在离发射台一百米的上空盘旋。
• I'm hovering between the concert and the play tonight. 我犹豫不决今晚是听音乐会还是看戏。

7 petroleum   

n.原油，石油

参考例句：

• The Government of Iran advanced the price of petroleum last week.上星期伊朗政府提高了石油价格。
• The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。

8 sterling   

adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑)

参考例句：

• Could you tell me the current rate for sterling, please?能否请您告诉我现行英国货币的兑换率？
• Sterling has recently been strong,which will help to abate inflationary pressures.英国货币最近非常坚挺，这有助于减轻通胀压力。