英譯漢：

　　In 2011 the chancellor surprised everyone by increasing the supplementary tax by 12 points to 32% (afterwards lowered to 30%). This might have netted the hard-up chancellor a windfall of about 2 billion (3 billion) but, so argue many in the industry, the tax rise also deterred companies from sinking any more money into an ageing basin where it had already become very expensive to operate. With margins wafer thin, North Sea oil and gas production, which had been falling steadily since its peak in 1999, plummeted between 2011 and 2013, before recovering slightly last year. Just as importantly, new exploration has crawled almost to a halt. This year it is expected that as few as eight new exploratory wells might be drilled. One consequence is that the once mighty North Sea oil and gas sector has become increasingly marginal to the overall British economy. In 2011-12 North Sea tax revenues totalled 10.9 billion, but in 2013-14 they had shrunk to just 4.7 billion.

　　2011年，這位大臣將附加稅率提升了12個百分點，達到了32%(后來又降到了30%)，這令所有人大吃一驚。經(jīng)濟拮據(jù)的大臣也許能借此獲得一筆約20億英鎊(30億美元)的意外款項，但是該產(chǎn)業(yè)的許多公司也辯稱稅率上漲阻止了公司將更多的錢扔進這經(jīng)營昂貴、日趨衰落的領(lǐng)域打水漂。北海的油氣生產(chǎn)利潤微薄，自1999年達到頂峰后一直保持逐年下降，在2011年和2013年之間驟跌，去年才微弱回升。另一個重要的原因是，新油田的探測也步步維艱到達瓶頸期。今年預計只有八塊新油田將會得到開采。一個結(jié)果就是曾叱咤風云的北海油氣產(chǎn)業(yè)會在整體英國經(jīng)濟中越來越邊緣化。2011年到2012年間，北海稅收總計109億英鎊，但在2013年到2014年，縮減到了47億。