单选题 Demand for oil grows steadily, as the vehicle fleets of the world expand. Today, the US has 250m vehicles and China just 37m. It takes no imagination to see where the Chinese fleet is headed. Other emerging countries will follow China"s example. Meanwhile, spare capacity in members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is currently at exceptionally low levels, while non-Opec production has equally consistently disappointed expectations. It looks increasingly hard to expand supply by the annual amount of about 1.4m barrels a day needed to meet demand. This means an extra Saudi Arabia every seven years. According to the International Energy Agency, almost two-thirds of additional capacity needed over the next eight years is required to replace declining output from existing fields. This makes the task even harder than it seems. As the latest World Economic Outlook from the International Monetary Fund adds, the fact that peak production is reached sooner, because of today"s efficient technologies, also means that subsequent declines are steeper. Similarly, it is not even true that the investment needed to boost the constrained production capacity has been lagging. The WEO shows that nominal investment by national and international oil companies more than doubled between 2000 and 2006. But real investment hardly increased, because of a global scarcity of rigs and associated skilled labor services. Against this background, it seems far more likely that such speculation as there is has been stabilizing, rather than destabilizing: in other words, it is moving prices in the right direction, in order to reduce demand. The price spikes of the 1970s were followed by big absolute falls in demand and output. This was partly because of the recessions and partly because of rising efficiency. Both forces should work again this time, but to a much smaller extent. The slowdown in the US economy is indeed likely to be significant. Slowdowns will also occur in Western Europe and Japan and even in the emerging world. But the latter will still grow rapidly. Overall, the world economy—and so world oil demand—is likely to continue to grow reasonably briskly. Similarly, the improved efficiency of use of petroleum, as people switch to more efficient vehicles, notably in north America(where the room for doing so is so large), will be offset by the rising tide of demand for motorized transport in the world"s fast-growing emerging countries. On balance, it is quite unlikely that aggregate demand for oil will collapse, as it did after the two previous price spikes, just as it is unlikely that massive net new oil supplies will come on stream in the near future. This does not mean that prices will remain as high as they are today for the indefinite future:such stability is improbable. But it means we should expect a sustained period of relatively high prices even if "peak oil"theorists are proved wrong. If proved right, this would be true in spades. Questions 11-15; Decide whether the following statements are TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN, and write your choice in the blanks.

单选题 As the vehicles are getting more and more, the demand for gas has increased.

单选题 With the development of technology, the production can be maximized.

单选题 The real investment is increasing with the sufficiency of labor services.

单选题 Most probably the prices will get lower in the foreseeable future.

单选题 The improved efficiency can be offset by the rising demand for transport.